


Seer Minato AU(Conversation Not Story)

by why_is_this_a_thing_now, writingforFUNandbecauseBoredom



Series: Naruto works [13]
Category: Naruto
Genre: As well as Zetsu, BAMF Namikaze Minato, But there is a lot of pain, Danzo leave children alone, Fuuinjutsu Shenaningans, Hogoromo fucks with that, Martyr Namikaze Minato, Minako is Minato's ancient grandma, Minako wields a giant hammer and axe, Minato has Genin teammates and they have a name, Minato's friends are long suffering, Namikaze Minato Lives, Namikaze Minato is a martyr, Nohara Rin Lives, Possessive Uchihas, Protective Genin Teammates, Protective Hatake Kakashi, Protective Nohara Rin, Protective Uchiha Obito, Protective Uchihas, Seer Namikaze Minato, Shimura Danzo being an asshole, Sunshine loses an eye, Sunshine man is a sunshine dad, T, The Kamui dimension is a vacation resort for Team 7 members, The Namikaze have blood limit, The Namikaze's were originally a badass Barbarian tribe, There is a good ending, They wished he took care of himself, Yondaime Hokage Sakumo Hatake, but at what cost, courtesy of Obito and Minato's Hiraishin, even if he's not mentioned all that much, in spirit form, it's called seeing the future
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-08-15
Packaged: 2020-07-12 06:19:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19941598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/why_is_this_a_thing_now/pseuds/why_is_this_a_thing_now, https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingforFUNandbecauseBoredom/pseuds/writingforFUNandbecauseBoredom
Summary: The Namikaze clan had always had a kekkei genkai, hidden and known only by the Shodaime, Nidaime and Sandaime... and those who have access to that information.A gift, those who are saved by their predicted demise says.A curse, spat the Namikaze, as they bleed, for the Universe is unforgiving of those who change their plans...Minato wishes he stopped dreaming, wishes he stopped seeing the bleeding corpses of his friends who he made sure were very much alive..What more? What more is he supposed to give?------------------------------So, why_is_this_a_thing_now happened to reply back to me on their work,i replied backi've finally found a fellow minato lover,and then we added in some angst before everything got out of control.there might be more the conversation hasn't ended yet lmao.Believe me the conversation is more fun to read than whatever else i might write.writingforFUNandbecauseBoredom is the one that starts the conversation in the case there are any confusions.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [why_is_this_a_thing_now](https://archiveofourown.org/users/why_is_this_a_thing_now/gifts).



Imagine an AU where the Namikaze clan had a dormant Kekkei Genkai that was a seer ability of sorts.

Like, it got triggered from near death experiences of sorts, and Minato is never really sure if his dreams are just dreams or visions because they are extremely vague.

In this AU he prevents his teammates death because of a split second deja vu but ends up nearly dying in return.

Maybe loses an eye, as a mild punishment for changing what should have been.  
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oooh, the potential for angst is strong with that ⊂(◉‿◉)つ  
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Minato constantly getting nightmares of people he never even met dying? Sign me up.

Because of his clans kekkei genkai that despite hiruzen's best efforts Danzo knows about, Danzo has an interest on trying to make Minato part of root, or kidnapping him and using his abilities for his own gain.

Minato knows about ROOT thanks to his visions, and finds himself not being able to trust anything or anybody.

He's alone.  
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Minato saw Sakumo's death when he was a brand new jounin, but at the time it was just another weird dream of his. He didn't know how important this person was until it was too late. He never saw Obito's 'death', which he beats himself up for constantly, raging at how useless his kekki genkai is if it won't even show him the deaths of his students. Kakashi, on the other hand, has more near-death (aka Minato avoided) experiences than anyone he's ever met before. Something really doesn't want him to make it past age twelve.  
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Well considering that we're making this an AU where he is literally half blind, and his teammates live long enough to also become important characters in Narutoverse for a change, how about we just make the angst happen in the form of the Universe just giving him constant real life near death experiences in return for the changes he makes?

Sakumo doesn't die, in return Minato has to deal with a grief stricken Sakumo accidentally stabbing him instead.

He brushes it off but he underestimates the amount of honor Sakumo has. He just earned the mans loyalty for a lifetime.  
Especially when he lied about how he got injured.

Shikaku is suspicious of the trail of misfortunes that follow his friend.  
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Hmm, to increase the angst, how about even though Sakumo is 'I owe you my life loyal', his loyalty to Minato is literally the only thing keeping him alive? Like, no matter what anyone says, he wants to make Kakashi proud and clean the family name but he /can't/ because he literally owes Minato his life. Minato gets a taste for how his friends feel whenever they try to keep him from getting too self-destructive since he's doing the same thing for Sakumo. Kakashi, now with an influence in his life that's not just the general public (and their shitty opinions on his father) is very confused on how he's supposed to act (rules or family?)

His friends, on the other hand, are Suffering(TM). He's got even more of a martyr complex in this one than he does in canon.  
—————————————  
Minato, even though he knows its pointless, tries to come up with ways that will make things less painful for him. At the very least he manages to stop any more of his body parts go missing, which means he gets to keep his other eye, but he can't stop the world of pain he ends up in each time he makes a change.

At some point he grows used to it, and that comes with its own set of problems.

Also, maybe Minato at some point starts writing down his visions in a well guarded notebook.

His teammates that actually got to live feel guilt and anger because Minato sacrificed his eye and nearly died specifically so they can live.  
—————————————  
Minato becomes numb to his own personal suffering, and every time his friends try to fix him, to get him to value himself more or at least not throw himself so recklessly into danger, something bad always happens. Either he doesn't manage to save the person he's trying to, or he does, but since he's less numb to everything that comes with stopping death (because his friends care, and they don't know how much it /hurts/) but the consequence is always worse after he gets used to their kindness.

He does keep a notebook, but it is the most heavily guarded/warded thing he owns. Once, before he knew any better, he hadn't been so cautious about his written accounts. Danzo had gotten his hands on the book, and... Well, lets just say that only Kushina or Jiraiya would be able to break into the one he keeps now.  
—————————————  
Minato's worst nightmare is Danzo.

The man horrifies him to death, and god forbid if the two of them end up in the same room together, Danzo makes a point of getting into the poor boys personal space and threatening him, and Minato is always aware and wary of Root agents that he knows are there.

Minato's grateful that the notebook Danzo gets his hands on at the time had the most minimal information regardin the future, and one can only do so much damage with such minimal information.

It helps that the Universe turns its wrath onto Danzo when he tries to do something about the predictions, like altering them to his own favor. Any kind of change is unwelcome.

For many years Danzo torments Minato... until Kakashi takes notice of how his sensei goes slightly paler and his remaining eye grows duller whenever Danzo is around.

Shikaku takes great pleasure in punching Danzo and publically executing him.

To escalate things further, even after he saves a person he sees the ghost of their original self haunt him.  
Like, Sakumo with his stomach cut open sits on his stool.

Minato is always haunted by ghosts of a timeline that will never happen.

At some point Inoichi offers to take away his kekkei genkai, as in take away his memories of the future and start handling the phrophecies himself in the stead of Minato.

And Minato just.... blankly stares at him, like he's not entirely registering what he just said.

The most sleep Minato ever gets is when he sedated himself because that's the only time he's not seeing things.  
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I feel like, eventually, he would take Inochi up on his offer. Not because he's suddenly become less of a martyr, but because he's become so broken that he cannot keep living the way he has been. It's only through decades of his friends worrying about him and literally innumerable close shaves with death, but eventually he gives in. It feels more like defeat than relief, at first. His friends try to work on it with him.

Since he's so busy saving people and crossing off names, Minato has no time or ambition to become hokage. Paying favor to a personally favorite 'what-if', since Sakumo is a really powerful ninja and was actually kind of a candidate for the hat before he beefed it in another reality (I personally ascribe to the 'Danzo purpousfully gave him bad info and spread rumors a la "Uchiha caused the kyuubi rampage" style to get him out of the running), it would be neat to see him in charge. Especially since he's unbelievably loyal to this young, seemingly suicidal jounin who's always staring at ghosts.

Also; yes. To hell with Danzo, let him rot. (but not before he makes everything suitably angsty)  
—————————————  
Danzo is the source of most of the panic attacks Minato goes through in private.

Minato gets scared at first for his friends who work together to take care of the future problems, but since they are working together as a whole the burden is shared.

Fugaku and Inoichi work together to take away Minato's seer abilities. Fugaku with his sharingan makes it easier for Inoichi to go through the discord in Minato's mind carefully without accidnetally breaking something.

The curse of the Seer ability ends when Zetsu and Kaguya are taken care of, and Hogoromo appears before them, confessing that a long time ago he had given the power of foresight to the Namikaze clan for this, and now that it had served its purpose he will take it back.

He dissapears before anyone can get a punch in.

Minato feels strangely light when he finds himself functioning more properly, though he gets nervous twitches at times he is otherwise getting a healthier complexion over time.

I'm not sure where to begin with the amount of pain and suffering Danzo brings.  
—————————————  
tbh, I'm kind of tempted to make him a full-blown seer (aka completely blind him), but that might just be because of something I've got planned in my story (not to any of the main crew). It would be interesting to have him overcome yet another challenge, and kind of poetic (and really awful) to have no sight but still see the ghosts of the future. Either that case, where he's fully blinded (either self-inflicted or otherwise) before he gets the ability removed, or Hogoromo makes him blind when he "removes" his foresight. Man, Hogoromo is an ass.  
—————————————  
I honestly had been thinking that he gives up at age 21, when his other eye finally gets taken and he loses complete sight.  
At first he tests out relying on his chakra sensory before he entirely gives up.

Also, i've been thinking about how while he is 12 Kumo discovers Konoha's Namikaze clan's role as a lineage of Oracles, and so instead of Kushina Minato gets targeted..... he nearly takes out most of them before they manage to pin him down, drug him and tie him up.  
Of course he gets rescued.

Also another thing, I think that originally the Namikaze clan were especially forbidden to fight and become ninjas. Especially once they awaken their Kekkei Genkai. They were basically a civilian clan more than a Shinobi one.

Tobirama, before his death had failed to inform his students directly of the Namikaze's importance.

So when he ends up ressurected somehow, the first thing that comes out of his moutj upon spotting this one eyed young man that has Namikaze features is; "You shouldn't be fighting."

Minato is an oblivious sweetheart.

Kakashi wishes his second parent's self esteem rises.

Kakashi, because he's a smart cookie, also takes notice how when Minato saved Obito his sensei/parent temporarily became unable to use his left arm and nearly lost his entire left side.

Or maybe Minato teaches his students a barrier move and when this jutsu saves Obito's life Minato nearly loses his entire left side as he is fighting all of the Iwa-nin.  
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I love the back story behind the Namikaze line, it could easily explain how such a powerhouse came out of a civilian line without even dipping into the whole fate shtick. Minato's life has just been one hardship after another, and even when he puts his martyr complex to rest he still can't retire because everyone else /needs/ him, somehow. His friends are the ones to put a stop to it, but Minato's retirement creates him a lot of enemies within Konoha. And, as is usual, it's not unheard of for retired shinobi to be called on to pick up their old titles again.

Oh, you're being nice and letting him keep Obito. I was going for, since he didn't die, Minato couldn't see it. Since he couldn't see it, he couldn't prevent it. Cue an absolute metric ton of angst, potentially even more if Tobi comes into play. idk, though, maybe he could bring Obito back even if he did go to Madara, since he'd give literally everything he had to stop Rin from dying >:?  
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Nice i worked hard on that background story.  
Considering his position as an oracle is kept as an SS-class secret that not even Danzo wants to spread around, mainly because he wouldn't want to deal with having competition over using Minato for his own gain, Minato doesn't actually get a whole lot of enemies from within Konoha.  
with that thought in mind....Minato getting kidnapped doesn't make sense....  
Unless he somehow ends up being a Jinchuuriki at the age of 12?  
Actually i was thinking about how Kurama would react to the broken mind Minato has.......  
i mean,  
Minato has a general seer ability from what i imagined.  
It's not exactly only deaths he sees, though most of what he sees is tragic, he sees other stuff too.  
The nicest thing he sees is a blond boy that has Kushina's love for Ramen and his own physical features, his life is lonely but so, so much nicer than anything Minato ever had and it was the nicest thing he had ever seen for once.  
So he does see how Madara ends up using Obito. Vaguely. He sees him getting crushed under boulders, and Rin getting easily kidnapped by Kiri, so he teaches him and Rin ways that they can better defend themselves, ups Rin's taijutsu even.  
—————————————  
OOOOH, YES!!! I GET IT! (Sign me up for unleashing a fully prepared Obito and Rin on a very much unprepared Zetsu and Madara)  
Kurama, sadly enough, is a big enough piece of work before Naruto talk-no-jutsu'd him into a friend shaped bijuu that he would immediately try to take advantage of Minato's broken psyche. He may not see /Minato/ as his enemy, but he wouldn't be particularly kind to him.

I was thinking more along the lines of people notice when that crazy Namikaze kid goes out and saves a bunch of people with startling frequency, and they want him to keep pulling off these miraculous saves instead of retiring, calling him selfish when he tries to look after himself for once - that's where I think he might make enemies, more on the civilian side than anything (it could also be Danzo's machinations to keep Minato an active shinobi and thus closer under his thumb)

When Kushina announces that she's pregnant, Minato immediately tears up. It's like he's had a full week of nothing but love and care from his friends and family, with no tragedies to avoid or pay for. He's going to be able to meet his son, and he just knows that their kid will have Kushina's love for ramen and his features. Finally, he'll be able to experience the vision that's been keeping him going since he was (idk, 19?) years old. It's the first time anyone can remember that he initiates a hug.  
—————————————  
aaaa then maybe no kidnapping.....  
Minato would probably end up unwillingly retiring when he finally loses his sight completely. Some civilians would probably understand the impossibility of fighting without sight, maybe the elderly would understand the concept of human limits. Horrible gossip still follows after him.

Kakashi can't help but compare seeing how Minato gets treated by the civilians to how his father had been treated for choosing to save his comrades. He hates it.

Nearly all of the shinobi part of Konoha are fully supportive of Minato's retirement because at some point all the missions that were given to Minato had become suicide missions, specific missions that are given to shinobi that seem to be a lost cause on the mental health department((Hiruzen for a moment wants to play favoritism, he is still Hokage, but as Hokage the majority comes first and it was law)).

But Minato's retirement isn't entirely a lost. He had thaught his students well. Obito had taken up Fuuinjutsu, and Rin was the next coming of Tsunade as a frontline medic. Kakashi was well known for his leadership. All three of them are powerhouses, and learned the Hiraishin before Minato had retired. Konoha still had the best offense and defense.

There is also his genin teammates who had ended up becoming powerful disciples with their own summons.

Kushina cries herself and hugs him back just almost fiercer. She cries even harder in happiness when Minato gives a honest, genuine, pain free smile that she almost never expected to see. Even without his eyes it's beautiful.

Kurama still ends up getting seperated into Yin and Yang half, Kushina survives despite all of Minato's fears because the Legendary Sannin were working together this time along with Biwako as the midwife, and Obito, Rin and Kakashi were standing guard against the Zetsus that still tried to pull something. Being blind doesn't exactly prevents him from doing fuuinjutsu but he rather not risk something delicate like making sure. bijuu doesn't escape during childbirth.

When it came to the surname Minato personally asked that it would be Uzumaki. He wanted the Namikaze name to be forgotten, almost viewed it as a curse even. There was simply too much tragedy behind that name by now.

Minato becomes a stay at home husband and father, and Naruto's first words are 'Dad'. Naruto has a huge role in Minato's recovery. Because even if he can't see Naruto's face, hearing his voice is simply a blessing.

Naruto has a lot of uncles and aunts and they are all badass.

The first few hours Minato holds Naruto, feeling how small tiny warm hands take hold of his finger, he comes to a realization that he says out loud to his friends that are gathering there;

"You know what? I earned this."

InoShikaCho cries.  
Kushina is so touched by this moment she can't say words.  
The rest of his friends are just content.  
—————————————  
I'm crying. This is just so beautiful.  
Eventually, the civilian whispers and scorn die down as Sakumo makes numerous speeches and a couple of relevant mandates, and by the time Naruto's growing up they've died down to almost nothing. Minato's house becomes the most well-visited in the neighborhood, with rounds of friends coming through the door at every hour of the day - their constant presence in Minato's life isn't because they're worried about him, for once, but because the sight of him so relaxed and /happy/ sets their minds at ease. Now, he's become their grounding influence, and all of the positive interactions he has continue to do wonders on his mental health.

His students definitely torch the hell out of Zetsu, making sure that he's gone forever. Their teacher didn't tell them everything that the weird plant-man did, but they know more than enough to want him gone forever.

Sometimes, he worries about Naruto inheriting his Sight. He's seen his son stare blankly at people for long periods of time, reacting to some sort of stimulus only he can see, and he panics. His son always seems happy, though, and never shows any ill effects of his possible sight but Minato still asks everyone to keep a close eye on him. (Naruto has something different. It is the Namikaze sight, but twisted since Hogoromo had lifted its original curse - I mean intent. Instead, he sees flashes of what people can become, visual proof of the good he always believes is in everyone. Once he learns how to use his weird insight to his advantage, his talk-no-jutsu becomes even /more/ effective, much to everyone's chagrin)  
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Of course, because shinobi life never completely leaves you Minato thaught Naruto about chakra while at home, helped him with chakra molding, told him about the elemental nations as a whole in the form of stories.

the Uzumaki-Namikaze household get visited a lot by the children of Minato's various friends. Sometimes with their parents, sometimes not because adults are busy. Minato's a positive influence on the children of course.

Itachi and Neji like how Mina-jii is genuinely kind to them, gives advice but doesn't push them to do anything. They also find him to be a badass uncle in the sense that he can easily talk down both Fugaku and Hiashi. "Being blind doesn't mean i've become an idiot Fugaku you're not having Itachi graduate early."

"Hiashi, since when did you care about what the elders think about how you handle your clan? No. That Bird Cage Seal is not happening."

At some point his friends notice that their children are scarily advanced along with their friends when they get to the academy. They shoot a knowing look at Minato, who uses his blindness as an excuse to be oblivious to those looks.

Naruto is hesitant to ask about his sight. He feels guilty for hesitating about talking it out with his own dad, but he can't see a path where he reacts positively to it.

He can't see mom being calm either. He doesn't understand why but neither of his parents don't seem to take it well.  
So he goes and asks one of his many uncles/aunts instead.

Inoichi is the first obvious option because his parents trust him the most and he is calmest person Naruto knows.

When Inoichi goes to calmly explain to Minato and Kushina about the untainted version of ths Namikaze clan's sight, he makes sure Naruto isn't there, and he makes them both sit down on the table.  
—————————————  
Itachi, since he's a couple of years older than the rest of the babbu crew, becomes an elder brother figure which helps him not obsess over Sasuke when he comes along.

There aren't any brewing wars on the horizon because A. Zetsu is gone, and that mofo was like 65% of all wars, and B. everyone hears rumors about the insanely powerful young generation Konoha is raising and they're all big scared.

Minato is very leery of Naruto's version of the ability, but after a lot of talking and planning he's willing to let things happen and see (metaphorically) where it goes before freaking out. Kushina's willing to follow his lead on this, but if her baby boy starts to encounter consequences from his sight, then she's going to step in. She's not going to stop him from doing what he thinks is right, but she's worked with Minato long enough to know how to spread the ill effects of a Change. (no ill effects show up, because I'm a sucker for happy endings and we've already put our lovely heroes through enough angst for one fic idea)  
  
Sakumo, as hokage: Wow, all of the intra-village politics and situations are a lot easier to handle than Hiruzen made them out to be!  
Minato, in the background browbeating his friends out of making stupid decisions, completely oblivious to the effect he's having on the inter-clan relations: That's great! I guess it's one of those things that skips a generation?

Obito, hanging out with Kakashi and Rin, the most politically savvy out of everyone: Oh my god, how can you be so dumb  
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I think he goes rapidly pale and Kushina has to squeeze his hand so he doesn't get a flashback back to those times again before Inoichi hastily explains how there doesn't seem to be having any bad side effects.

Naruto basically becomes the next oracle, but unlike Minato the changes he makes are more subtle.

Obito be nice the man can't help being oblivious to the power he has.

Also Minato makes blind jokes. His friends walk right into them. And the kids too.

Itachi: *silently excited* Mina-jii i've gotten a good grade! *hands over paper*

Minato: *holding paper, mock serious expression*..... Well I certainly do see a good grade.

Naruto: *stiffling giggles*  
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Obito is the only person willing to crack blind jokes with him, since he's still got his sense of dark humor he developed along the way. Kushina wants to hate it, but Minato gets such a kick out of making them that the good outweighs the bad and she can't yell at him for it.

Any time his friends get up the courage to make a blind joke at him, he either acts like he doesn't understand and makes them explain it to him, or he gets mock offended just long enough to worry them. (He's become slightly mean-spirited since his childhood, but it's one of the ways he's been coping with things). He blankly stares at anyone he doesn't care about whenever they make anything even approaching a joke about his disability, when he doesn't verbally chew them out.

After Itachi starts to lose his vision, Minato takes him under his wing and helps him feel a lot more comfortable with the state of his eyes. (He still asks Sakumo to call in Tsunade to check his honorary son over, though)  
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During a Chuunin exams a foreign nin attempts to be mean about his disability because the Yellow Flash(i kind of think he should get a different nickname but im not sure this one fits best)

All the aspiring to be chuunin konoha genin immediately set their eyes on the fool. Minato gives a twisted smile as he senses his sons chakra growling along with Kurama's chakra. He doesn't pity the poor man at all.

Oooh yes! Minato teaches Itachi to sense chakra, and to use other organs to get a feel of his surroundings. If using the sharingan is what giving Itachi blindness then Minato takes him to the side and tells him the hardships of being blind in detail. Because he can see more than a little bit of himself in Itachi, and it disconcerts him. He basically teaches Itachi to not strain himself when he has other options. Options were something he never got to have.  
There is something ironic in how Minato is the one to teach someone to be chill.  
\-----------------  
I'm just imagining during a kage summit A gets curious about the 'Flee on sight' Konoha shinobi. He's heard that he had retired, never knew why.  
When he catches sight of a blond blind man surrounded by children, he immediately recognizes him as the formidable one eyed opponent.

He quietly takes time to watch how Namikaze Minato laughs and plays with the children, even picking up his own son, and sees a remarkable difference between him and the shinobi that had stood his ground and slaughtered several Kumo-nin.

Peaceful, lighter, less burdened... and looking less like he's constantly standing on his last leg.

With mixed feelings, but a final desicion, A turns away from the former shinobi that is now a stay at home father and resolutely focuses on his own life as the Raikage. He is glad, at the very least, to see evidence that Inner peace does truly exist.  
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I feel like Minato would keep his "The Yellow Flash" as an official moniker, but would have the unofficial and more widely used nickname "That Namikaze Bastard". It's said with awed reverence from Konoha shinobi, and is spat grudgingly by enemy shinobi (he is constantly messing up plans and attacks. Kohona's fatality rate has never been lower, while everyone else's is dangerously high.)

Naruto, being the sunshine child that he is, constantly hangs around Itachi whenever he visits, describing everything he sees in detail so that Itachi doesn't feel left out. It makes Itachi feel worse, at the start, but after Minato talks with him (gets him more comfortable with his disability) and Naruto (telling him to be mindful of what Itachi wants - just because you would like to know what everything around you looks like, doesn't mean that big brother Itachi wants the same thing. Make sure you take his feelings into account) it gets better, and Itachi finds him endearing.

Konoha shinobi all get seriously overprotective of each other. It started out as everyone looking after Minato, since no matter who you are, he's saved at least two of your good friends from certain death at great personal risk, but it goes further when the realize that they can help their blond comrade actually make it home alive if they look after people who /aren't/ him, with arguably more success.  
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Pffft he probably blinked the first time he heard his unofficial nickname.

Naruto takes a lot after Minato but he also takes a lot after Kushina. Unlike Minato, who in his childhood had a hard time relying on anyone, Naruto does it like a breeze. Minato has times where he quietly notes these differences whenever his son bring a whole herd of children to his house. He notes how unlike his other visions, the change that happened on 10th October wasn't paid in anyway, by anyone.

Mess with one of them you get a whole hoard.

Minato feels proud to be part of Konoha whenever Kushina tells him of their comrades, and how they helped each other.  
—————————————  
Above all else, Minato is just happy that his son has friends he can trust.

Minato is the real reason every other ninja village thinks that Konoha is completely bonkers, and he just thinks that it's his friends and the other shinobi who finally made some progress on bringing trust and faith in your fellow leaf-nin rather than his one man crusade to keep everyone ever alive. The only person outside of Konoha who knows just who is responsible for the (dangerous) change is A.  
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A decides that Minato should probably not be aware of the power he has anyways.

One day someone tells him straight faced that they would literally die for him and he immediately goes 'No don't.'

Minato is slightly concerned about the number of people who seem to be protective of him but his son and his friends distract him.  
—————————————  
Even if someone told Minato how much power he has over everyone, he wouldn't believe them. He's a firm believer in the respectful and courteous manner of literally every person who interacts with him, and he's sure that he helped Konoha become so team oriented but he's certainly not the only reason it is! If you're looking for someone to pin that one on, the whole loving and caring about your fellow shinobi, pin it on Hashirama-sama!  
  
Random Shinobi: I would die for you.  
Minato: I really wish you wouldn't, I'm a bit out of practice avoiding that.  
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hashirama is a mental headcase. just saying. he was a good Hokage for a reason, instead of talking with Kurama and being understanding about his mind controlled state he just put him to sleep and sealed him.

I'm not even sure he ever understood human emotions either. i headcanon he spent more time talking to plants than he had to people.  
He mastered the smiling mask better than Minato ever had.

Minato wants all of you to avoid premature death as much as you can please and thank you.

A lot of jounin are respectful of him, cue confused foreign genin wondering what's the story behind this nice blind guy.  
Iwagakure wasn't aware of Minato's retirement, and when they are they are too paranoid to believe that.  
—————————————  
Hashirama... Hashirama always did everything for the village. He was never able to see the trees for the forest, operating solely on a big picture level. He's worse than Minato at people, partially because he doesn't understand that he doesn't connect with them, and partially because he literally doesn't care. Sure, he needs people for his village, but as long as he has them, they don't matter. They're inconsequential.

The genin, when they're more bold than most, go up to him and ask him why so-and-so really respects him. He'll sit them down and give them a short, wonderful story (not actually abridged, and this is how a lot of the upcoming ninja get introduced to the horrors of war early. Minato just doesn't know what's kid appropriate, and all of the parents are too awkward to ask him to lighten up) about how he saved their life, or the lives of their teammates. He's a wonderful story teller, and it's yet another in-road for him to kinda adopt/take under his wing yet more children.

That's how the story always went - you think that that Namikaze bastard is down for the count, or that he's not even on this side of the continent, and then BAM! He gets you. They've seen it happen too many times to let their guard down again, even in peace time.  
—————————————  
And that's what makes Hashirama terrifying. Tobirama was definitely a more caring leader, but his problem was that he wasn't the kind of teacher that was able to get his point of view across correctly. He wasn't an Uchiha hater, but he wasn't able to get that message across.

Eventually it becomes like a bonus part in the chuunin exams that you don't really have to go through or pass whenever its held in Konoha. There is no instructor, just a very experienced shinobi that has seen all the horrors of war, and his wisdom.

Minato loves messing with Iwa genin just a little bit, not really sabotaging them but he just kind of makes them hints of who he is then BAM. He gives a smirk the moment they figure out who the heck this supposedly blind civilian guy sitting besides them is.

When asked he says it's a coping mechanism.  
—————————————  
Tobirama, probably: The Uchiha are dangerous, so we should make sure they're properly taken care of.  
Danzo, probably: So we should kill them all.  
Tobirama: What? No?? I meant 'make sure that they're happy with their place in Konoha', what the hell?  
  
Minato's 'coping mechanisms' that he claims so far: making blind jokes, slightly terrifying Iwa-nin, hoarding children (he eventually fesses up to that one)  
The chuunin hopefuls from other villages find it weird that the exam proctors bring in this random blond guy who's not even a part of the exam, and they're completely lost when all of the Konoha kids get super excited. Eventually, they start to accept and warm up to him, passing down stories they've heard from him to the rest of their friends back home, and Minato's following/influence gets just a bit wider.  
—————————————  
Tobirama in the purelands watching what danzo doing; *with his hands* boi

Eventually Minato becomes a goddamn religion and Mei bluntly points out this fact during a kage summit.

From Ame Yahiko, Nagato and Konan learns about this war hero that was Jiraiya's former student.  
Yahiko bi panics upon landing eyes on him because 'oh my god so pretty' and Konan has to take over while Kushina smothers her found cousin in familial affection. Yahiko's lucky Minato's blind, so he doesn't see the Ame leader floundering.

—————————————  


(He knows, though. He /so/ knows. He doesn't need to see in order to pick up on Yahiko's floundering - he can sense a fellow disaster-bi miles away)  
((It doesn't help that Nagato and Konan tease Yahiko about his bi crush a little bit too loudly for Minato not to overhear))  
(((Kushina says that it's a fact of life that no Uzumaki can resist him, and the rest of his traitorous friends all nod in mock solemn agreement)))  
—————————————  
so basically Nagato has a crush on him too but he makes it less obvious.

Straight up all the trio has a crush on him.

Minato knows. Minato sighs.

He also jabs his walking stick at the direction he senses his friends are.

Btw Kakashi totally lends one of his ninken as a seeing eye dog for Minato in the cases where the walking stick gets broken.

Or the Inuzuka just straight up give him a permanent seeing eye dog that will stay with him 24/7. Minato loves her so much, as well as Naruto.  
—————————————  
It takes a while for the Inuzuka to get him a seeing dog - not because they don't want to give one of their dogs away to someone who's not clan (because for all that he's not clan, he is most certainly /pack/), but because Kakashi is such a brat about it. He keeps insisting that /his/ pack can look after his other father just fine, that the Inuzuka need to stop poking their nose into his business. Minato calms him down eventually, with suspiciously little help from Sakumo and rather /un/helpful laughter from the rest of his friends.

Naruto's just psyched to get to pet more dogs (though he can't pet this new one when she's working, mama and other dad/uncle were very clear about that)  
—————————————  
D'aww Kakashi being territorial over his family members.

Kiba views him as pack and shows teeth at Kakashi if he's there whenever he visits. Go so far as to hugging Minato right in front of him and making sure his and his partners scent gets mixed in with Minato's.

Kakashi's silently irritated. Sakumo coughes into his fist to prevent himself from laughing. Minato smiles ruefully at this childish but amusing rivalry between a full Jounin and a Genin.

One important detail that is unrelated to the dog part;

Minato is shorter than he would be in canon because of how much more of a martyr he was in this AU. He is the shortest adult around.

His students and friends have a fun time literally sweeping him off his feet and carrying him bridle style at random times. Kushina gets the most privelage because he doesn't try to escape from her whenever she does it.  
He doesn't care that's his wife.  
—————————————  
Beautiful. Eventually, Kakashi accepts that the Inuzuka have been adopted by his other father (NOT the other way around.) He makes sure to instill a proper hierarchy for uppity little brats like Kiba, though, and after a lot of grumbling and showcasing, they accept it. (Kakashi has to field the occasional spar in order to keep his place as Minato's close friend, son, and protector, but he always wins. He'll never admit it, but sometimes he actively seeks out Gai so that he can get intense training in just so that he doesn't have to worry about some upstart Inuzuka stealing his place)

(Minato would never care who won in Kakashi's little spars, there's no way anyone is replacing the son he's raised and seen flourish into such an amazing person.)

The two people who most enjoy spiriting Minato away princess style are Kushina and Obito. Kushina, because she loves her husband very much, and Obito, because it usually means that there's chaos brewing and he can run away cackling like a madman. Sakumo tends to pick Minato up like a sack of potatoes, rather than a princess - just kind of sticks him under his arm and walks off, whenever he doesn't want Minato doing what he's trying to do (generally, this happens when Minato is 'talking' with someone very rude, and it was either abscond or reduce this random person into dust, which wouldn't look great on his record as Hokage)  
—————————————  
(He doesn't tell him this of course, instead he takes a moment to appreciate Kakashi acting like his age a little)

Little Naruto had once said he was going to grow big enough to princess carry tou-chan like Mom and Obito-jii do. And he says it with certainty, with the Namikaze sights aid with him even.

Minato finds this cute but also despairs because this means his sons going to be taller than him too.

Minato can hold his own against rude people, thank you very much! That doesn't matter of course.

Minato hates being as short as he is, everyone else loves it.  
—————————————  
Minato swears that if he ever sees Hogoromo again, he's going to punch his lights out. Mostly about the fact that it was his damn curse (gift my ass, the sight wasn't anything Minato would ever ask for in the first place) that made him so /short/. (Sometimes, Naruto will say something that hints at an alternate Minato being taller, and he breaks down angry crying)

Of course Minato can hold his own against rude folks, it's just that Sakumo doesn't want him to have to deal with them at all. He knows that his young friend is made of stern stuff, but he protected Sakumo when he had nothing left to gain, so Sakumo will always protect him (even if he doesn't need saving - the sentiment is still there) Minato's exasperated, but always feels touched at how deeply Sakumo cares about him.  
—————————————  
Minato: WHY AM I CURSED TO BE SO SHORT?!?!?

Naruto: oh no i said that by accident-

eventually Minato stops feeling insecure about his height.

Especially because Kushina cuddles him and being the little spoon is very great.

Shikaku: So, kushina, is Minato the little spoon or the big spoon?

Minato, deadpan from the kitchen: I'm a kunai.

Kushina: he's the little spoon.  
—————————————  
It also helps that everyone underestimates him because of both his height and his blindness. He doesn't need to defend himself often, but whenever he does it always results in a swift and thorough drubbing for his would be opponent.  
—————————————  
Its a humbling moment for many ninjas.

Okay but Minato makes sure favoritism doesn't happen to Naruto during the Chuunin exams. He makes sure Naruto doesn't go and get told exactly how the Chuunin exams will go. 

Naruto doesn't know about the stories of war and the gruesome experiences his father had until the Chuunin exams, not even his Namikaze sight prepares him for the shock he feels in seeing his father unusually serious.

Naruto's known his dad was a badass, that he was a retired shinobi that did many things, killing, saving, sabotaging- but knowing somehing and understanding something are different things.  
———————————


	2. Conversation Part 2

I know that has the potential to be really angsty, but I think it would just further cement Naruto's respect for his dad. He'd maybe do something nice for him after the exams are over, but otherwise wouldn't change anything between them. The rest of his family is proud at how mature and good he's grown into being.

———————————  
I had no intentions for angst, this is good and great.

I... am running out of fuel regarding how to continue this.

I'm sort of imagining that Zabuza and Haku coming to Konoha as Kiri-nin, and then Zabuza just literally flirts with danger because he flirts with Minato, knowing that he is the Yellow Flash, married, has a kid. He backs off if Minato rejects him.

Then Minato, Kushina and Zabuza develop a relationship where they jokingly flirt with each other whenever they meet....  
———————————  
Haku thinks that it's how all adults interact, and starts doing the same thing with the people he meets. This gives Zabuza a heart attack whenever he sees it happen. (Haku basically becomes a nicer Sai)

Everyone is confused about Kushina, Minato, and Zabuza's relationship. Some of the people closest to them, like Minato's close family and Haku, don't care and are just grateful that they're happy, but everyone else is very inquisitive. They shouldn't be, though, because none of the answers they get are helpful in the least. Mikoto and Fugaku take it as a green light to wage their own flirt-war on the couple, and Sasuke cringes at their embarrassing, love-filled comments and gestures (that, and cooties. gross! Why are his parents being all weird?)  
———————————  
Aww cute i'm just imagining a mini Haku just flirting with adult ninjas and they just find it too cute and precious and funny to be weirded out.

Also I'm just imagining an academy chuunin groaning to his colleagues about why some of his students parents had to be hot, and he gets asked which students, and he says Naruto and Sasuke.

Of course unknown to him Minato and Mikoto are hanging out nearby, and Mikoto snickers quietly while Minato calls out 'Oh Iruka-sensei! Just the man I was looking for! I was wondering how my son was doing in classes lately...'

And that's how Umino Iruka starts to get teased by Naruto and Sasuke's parents.  
———————————  
Haku takes Sai under his wing in the art of flirting, and the world is never the same. None of the chuunin can do anything about it, because all of the adults think it's too adorable to stop.

Iruka was one of the children Minato had taken under his wing, but the little guy was so independent and determined that he wiggled his way out of Minato's care to go do his own thing. Minato remembers him fondly, and is super proud of the life Iruka's managed to make for himself. Iruka remembers Minato as a tired but very kind man who helped him when he needed it the most, almost like a very young grandparent with how doting Minato was to him. The teasing is very cute and wholesome, and it's nice to connect with a pleasant memory from his past. (plus, what with how attached Iruka's gotten to Naruto, it's a miracle that this didn't happen any sooner.)  
———————————  
That's so cute-

Minato's the grandpa to a lot of jounin and chuunins there, and a few civilians as well.

One day a child asks if he's an angel and he ends up chuckling. Before he can say no, of course, Genma, who decided to be the one accompanying Minato that day, immediately says yes.

Minato doesn't really thinks he's a good person, or a bad person. He likes to think he's just trying his best.

Naruto sometimes cries at how overly humble his father is. ----The first time Minato gets a vision in many years is when Sakumo is retiring and passing on the hat to Godaime Rin. He dreams of two certain relatives of Kaguya Otsutsuki, Momoshiki and Kinshiki entering their world and attacking the entirety of the elemental nations....He wakes up having a panic attack.

Naruto shares the vision with him, and reacts more calmly because he is more in practice dealing with visions than Minato is.

Aaaand I see the road ahead splitting, one of them does a U turn to Angstville and the other is going into other directions.  
———————————  
Genma is basically Minato's wingman, but for children. I love all of the mother hen!genma fics, and I feel like he would reverse mother hen Minato since he's like "same hat!!!" and also because Minato was the person who took him in when he was young.  
\---  
I'm afraid that I cannot traverse the road with you any longer, because I have absolutely no idea who those folks are. Sorry!!  
———————————  
Minato is befuddled at first at being mother hen.

I love Mother hen Genma. It's my jam.

Usually Genma would need to go reverse mother henning whenever Minato decides to do things a blind, retired shinobi should not be doing, experience or not.

Which is surprisingly enough quite a lot. 

Like jumping on rooftops.

And usually there is no need to be worried about that but seeing a blind man get up to things like that is more than a bit worrying for both shinobi and civilian alike. ---Aww okay then lets just add in some small tiny details i guess?

Because regarding the Namikaze clan, I feel like there are more things that can be worked on there... like maybe chuunin Minato while on a mission outside of Konoha encounters ancient artifacts left by the Namikaze clan?

Also, I'm pondering on the Namikaze clan now.. like, about where they came from. Their own bloodline limit didn't originate from the Hamura(White Sage's brother) or Hogomoro, and considering how this is going, they were possibly a clan existing before the White Sage.

Which means they are a clan possibly originating from way before chakra was even known as a thing, ninshu was discovered, or Kaguya descended on the world.

Maybe that will remain a mystery...  
———————————  
Minato loves to do things that he shouldn't be doing - half because he thinks that he can still do them even without his sight, and half because it seriously freaks out everyone around him.  
\---  
Namikaze clan are all aliens, confirmed. (sorry, sorry, it's just that I've never actually /read/ naruto, and all of my info comes from fix-it fics that I wanted to read and the narutopedia site (´・ω・); ) I'm not super hip about anything before the founders' era, but having the seer ability originate as something that predates chakra would mean that we would need a different way to remove the 'curse' from Minato. That, or Hogomoro twisted Minato's version of the sight and just set it back to rights rather than being the cause of it in the first place!  
———————————  
Minato reveals a lot of childish parts of him over the years that he never got to do when he was actually a child.

Sure, he does act mature but also?  
He sulks and pouts at small things, gets angry about his height, plays some small prank and trolls other people, has sass under his sleeve....

He doesn't really realize why he's acting that way until Inoichi says it.

"Since you never had the chance to act like a child, you're basically catching up on that with small stuff."----------------Well, that was kind of the idea? Hogoromo wisted the Namikaze clans sight in a way that would benefit him(specifically focus on stopping the cycle of hatred and destroy zetsu)...

Also, we can always make up OCs and completely ignore Boruto. I've only ever read the Naruto Manga, so i am relying a lot on Narutopedia as well. i've never read Boruto.

Making up an Otsutsuki OC that came to earth before Kaguya comes from DaiyuSamai~

All we need is two information, 1. Momoshiki(an Otsutsuki character) has the ability to see the future, which means there are those types of Dojutsu as well. 2. Kaguya's appearance, and how the Otsutsuki clan generally travels from world to world to harvest chakra and prelong their lives...

If you're not opposed to the OC idea that is.

So yeah the Namikaze clan have alien blood in them.  
———————————  
Boruto... nah. I've tried reading some fics about him/the rest of that crew, and I couldn't do it. I'm all for pretending it doesn't exist.

Could we make the Namikaze clan an offshoot of the Otsutsuki clan, or make them have a shared ancestor who was the source of the dojutsu? (Am I literally just repeating what you wrote? If yes, then feel free to ignore) Maybe the OC came to earth trying to prelong their life but was already so weak/injured that they only made it a couple of years before they still ended up dying, so that way it wouldn't really interfere too much with the whole Kaguya thing?

(OCs are fine and sometimes necessary when used as plot devices)

((Confirmed))  
———————————  
Yessssssss i am all for that!

young!Shikaku: So does this make you an alien?

young!Minato: *opens mouth**pauses**looks troubled before deciding to not answer and just leaving*

young!Shikaku: Minato???

Listen younger Shikaku being conspiracy theorist. Can we make Shikaku that guy that is sometimes unfortunately aware of things but isn't sure what to do with what he is aware of?

Also Minato came up with some of the craziest plans. The stronger the enemy the crazier the plan gets.

He will even go so far as to invent a new jutsu or seal right on the spot.

Dire situation happens;

Konoha Squad:....

Minato: I'm going to do the thing.

Squad Member: No that's crazy.

Squad Member 2: Please don't do the thing.

Jounin Commander: *sighs regretfully* Do the thing.

Minato: THE THING IS ALREADY DONE EVERYONE TAKE COVER-------------  
I'm thinking that the girl/boy is an Uchiha, because they would have had a seal if they were a Hyuuga(no way would they be a main family member with how they dress), and the boy is the medic, or at least the pharmacist of the team.

I've done some research on Narutopedia and found;

“The Hōki Family (ホウキ族, Hōki-zoku) is a matrilineal shinobi clan (and family) of medical-nin and information gatherers from Sunagakure, who originated in and moved down to the village of Konohagakure.”

Which i think fits for the Minato's other Genin teammate  
———————————  
Shikaku: I've connected the dots

Inochi: you haven't connected shit

Shikaku: /I've connected them???/  
  
Alternately   
Minato: I'm going to do the thing

Squad Member: Can we not do the thing?

Squad Member 2, sighing: No, we're going to do the thing

Squad Member 3: How did he live long enough to become a Jounin commander again?

Squad Members 1&2: By doing the thing.

Minato: *explosion sounds*  
\----  
Sounds good to me - the Uchiha/Hyuuga would probably be a girl, since Kishimoto tends to stick with the 2:1 ratio for gennin team composition. How early on was the caged bird seal applied? Because if it's not super early, then we could probably make them a Hyuuga (and it might give us an in on how Minato became friends with Hiashi and Hizashi (sp?) ) The Hoki family is a great idea for his third teammate!  
———————————  
InoShikaCho friendship at its finest. Chouza is just listening and eating chips at the side.

Who in their right mind would make this Minato a Jounin commander, maybe an ANBU captain sure, but I think Minato in this AU would be too suitable for stealth and unpredictability to be trusted with a squad???

Also considering that they would probably list Minato as 'Suicidal' sooner or later he would probably mostly be assigned solo missions, outside of war times at least.

But whatever floats your boat ig, the idea is hilarious.

Minato also never considered that he would end up becoming Jounin-sensei because of his reputation of being more reckless and suicidal. Not to mention the fact that he was starting to dissapear into ANBU(probs)

So he's extremely surprised when he's assigned a genin team. His friends decided to consult Hiruzen on this desicion(Sakumo becomes Yondaime later on.) He supposes its one of the predictions that are too fated to be changed.  
\-------  
According to Narutopedia, members of the branch family get a cursed seal on the third birthday of the next clan heir.

I think that we can play in Minato being a prodigy in here. He would be younger than his teammates. And at this point in time the phrophecies he has are merely vague dreams, and sometimes he knows things that he probably shouldn't be knowing but he doesn't realize that himself, thinking that its normal. 

Due to this he's considered a bit weird in the Academy.

Also, i'm thinking of making the age gap between Minato and the clan heads a bit longer? Like Fugaku is 5 years older than him, along with InoShikaCho. Mikoto and Kushina are the same age as him...  
———————————  
The jounin commander thing might have been a one time ploy to try and get Minato to stop being so damn reckless with himself. It didn't work, and Hiruzen never gave him the position ever again.

\---  
I was wondering more along the lines of 'when did the Hyuuga start the entire practice of putting seals on their kids in the first place'...

Weird baby in the academy, I love it. Would that mean Kushina goes through the academy early as well, since they were in the same class in canon(I think)? The age gap thing sounds fine! Honestly, the timeline that far back is such a mess, who's to say those age gaps aren't canon?  
———————————  
Lololol he tried. I bet when he told Minato he's assigning him a squad as Jounin commander Minato went with a blank expression;

"This is going to end badly but ok Hokage-sama."  
\--------Minato has a lot of big siblings because don't tell me his teammates didn't take one look at him and went;

"Oh shit must protect smol one."

Of course smol one ends up protecting them and its frustrating, because Minato's younger than them, and he almost died for them on a mission.

They do a lot of cuddle piles because of the need to know that their teammates are alive and breathing.

Also About the Hyuuga thing, I think that practice dates back to Warren States Period. Hiashi and the rest of the Hyuuga family are too into the tradition, and there are a lot of hints of the sealing practice being a tradition that has been ingrained to the Hyuuga for a long time now.

It might be one of the reasons why the Uchiha hate the Hyuugas.

What if we made the Hyuuga in the team a half bred instead of a pure Hyuuga? They leave outside of the clan, and can barely activate the Byakugan for longer than 5 minutes because of how outside of the inbreeding they are.

And yeah, Kushina goes through the Academy early as well, but she doesn't become genin at the same time as Minato does.

We're screwing with the Naruto timeline because Kishimoto is unreliable.  
———————————  
Gotcha, gotcha!

It would be a cool team dynamic to play with - Jiraiya would def focus an inordinate amount of attention on Minato bc he thinks that he's the chosen one (or whatever the particular vernacular is), and while it might make his teammates jealous in a normal world it makes sense when he's a reckless little hellion in this AU. I like the half-Hyuuga thing! Potential angst from the Hyuuga clan itself, and a possible death at the hands of bloodline ability hunters who saw her Byakugan.

Kishimoto? Wack. Naruto timeline? Wack. Screwing with both? Tight as fuck.  
———————————  
Minato having survivors guilt and blaming himself for her death.

Minato upon finding her body going pale as a ghost and expression becoming blank. Its only until his medic teammate confirms her dead with a shaky voice does he automatically go after the ones he knows are responsible, he saw are responsible.

Only one of them survive. The rest tortured with a seal that makes their chaka affinity kill them from the inside, slowly, painfully. Minato keeps quiet, the way his hands shakily hold onto the pulse point of his only living genin teammate the only indication of what he's feeling.

Morino Ibiki from T&I sets an eye on him for his torturing skills.

Or,

She lives but ends up being blind, depressed and frustrated. Eventually lashes out at her teammates, and that causes Minato to dissapear and stop interacting with her before she could apologize or take her words back, not because he's mad but because he figures she doesn't want him there anyway.----------Also, what if the Summons world vaguely knows about the Namikaze clan? Not by name but by appearance, from brief interactions with them? 

Like, one of Sakumo's wolf summons curiously looks at him and asks of his origins, and Minato redirects a lot of questions out of nervousness at the direction they're seemingly going.

What if the Chinoike clan is saved from the terrible fate that awaits them from being exiled to a land with so little food source thanks to a wandering clan that had lead them to better pastures, with their sky blue eyes set to the horizons and sunlike hair shining like a beacon for them? 

The Chinoike Clan;

https://naruto.fandom.com/wiki/Chinoike_Clan  
———————————  
ohhh noooo, I thought we saved his teammates? Making that happen would be a really good way to put our good ol' friend angst back into the equation tho.

\---

(gotta protect my sunshine boy from The Sads) Every Summons is obligated to look out for and defend the Namikaze because of an ancient debt they're repaying. Minato never learns this (or, if he does he only learns much later on through either Sakumo or Kakashi's summons), because he's so used to his family name bringing him nothing but misery and misfortune.  
———————————  
i am cruel.

we could go with second option?

\------  
It's when Minato's going through a particularly bad funk of self hatred to the point he can't hide it that the wolves decide to step in...

The Namikaze's never had a contract with Summons because they didn't need to. The Summons world is forever in the debt of their ancestor, Namikaze Minako, the daughter of Otsutsuki Toneri and Namikaze Ryoko, and the first Namikaze to be blessed with the power of seeing the future, which she had used to save the entirety of the Summons world by warning them of a future demise... this was before Hogoromo had tainted their bloodline limit.

The Namikaze clan have the all of the Summons at their disposal.

Even the most vicious ones.

So really, one of Sakumo's wolf summons does not take it well when they hear Minato cursing his own family name.

(Minako and Minato look very similar, except Minako was female with longer hair and Minato is male with shorter hair. Still, its remarkably hard to tell their gender.)

(Minako, upon seeing her descendant: Oh my! I have such a cute descendant!

Minato, upon seeing his ancestor: Did I accidentally make a Kage Bunshin???)  
———————————  
We could! As long as it gets resolved - I don't want to have us pull a Kishimoto and kill off a female character just because she's there.

\---

Orochimaru has to be very careful about planning out his attacks on Konoha, because the first time he tried, he set some of his summons up against a group that had Minato in it and they just straight up refused to attack the blond. It makes planning very difficult, and honestly he's kind of jealous for the regard that they have for Minato (hell, they treat him with more respect than they treat Oro with! It's not fair!)

Minato, seeing his ancestor: no wait, that's not a Kage Bunshin, they're too tall!(Minako is 2cm taller than Minato. He is so, so upset.)  
———————————  
Of course not. She'd just be cranky.

Then she goes onto learning the way of the sword. She's not as good as she was before, still, but she's a real badass and great in a team, since she can tell where her allies are and where her enemies are with chakra sensing, and the usage of her other four senses.

It's after she manages to take down five of the other kenjutsu students that studied under her master that she goes to confront Minato.

\-----------

Minato, as an Academy student, unconsciously would follow after those he seen be part of great events. Good or bad. Orochimaru asks why this tiny blonde kid is following him, and in return he gets a confused blink and a tilt of the head. 

Orochimaru has to hold a hand to his chest because oh god so cute is this a secret weapon?

(Lolololol)

Minako is a badass, even as a spirit. The Namikaze's used to take part in fighting a lot before the White Sage era, and Minako was legendary, mastering all the elements, including Yin and Yang... her legends aren't heard to this day only because they're so old and ancient. 

She's also very energetic. And openly loving.

She punches the White Sage in the face with a shout "HOW FUCKING DARE YOU DO THIS TO MY FAMILY YOU WHITE ASSHOLE?!" 

She goes onto hit both Ashura and Indra on the head too. "You brats better make up and stop dragging other people into your bullshit." 

She slaps Kaguya. The most impressive bitch slap that echoes all across the Universe. 

Basically she's too powerful to get resurrected so we're going to give her screen time towards the end.

Also, Minako weilds an axe. Or an Hammer. Something big she swings around calmly while her enemies scream in terror.

\--------

Orochimaru being a jerk and telling Minato how as an oracle he isn't made for shinobi life, and how he should just give up so he stops being a dead weight to those he's trying so hard to keep alive. 

Or Fugaku and Hiashi being of the opinion that as an 'Oracle' Minato should quit being a shinobi.

They have a fight over this and Minato ends up avoiding them, Hizashi being the one that gets to approach him because he is supportive of whatever Minato decides for himself, despite his own feeling on the matter.

They start talking again after Fugaku ends up saving Minato from a strong opponent, and apologizes for his words and offers to help Minato with his kenjutsu.

Hiashi gets the chance to tell him that despite his own feelings in the matter he shouldn't have went and decided on Minato's fate. He apologizes for that.  
———————————  
The confrontation doesn't go well, but after Inochi gets the rest of Minato's friends out of the room it goes better. She apologies, explains why she did what she did, and tells him that she will do everything she can to never do that again, as long as he doesn't shut himself out, please? After enough time to fully reconcile and come to terms with what happened, they become good 'blind buddies,' getting into all sorts of heartstopping shenanigans that someone who's blind SHOULD NOT do - saying that she's your spotter doesn't help, Minato! She can't see you! Get down from that roof!!

\---

Oddly enough, Orochimaru is never as infatuated with the potential Minato represents as a Seer. He's by no means good, but he tends to leave Minato alone (and not just because his summons like the fluffy man more than him) - he's still opinionated on what sort of role he should adopt because of his 'gift', but he's no Danzo. He's just an ass.

Cue little excerpts after every chapter that's just Minako screaming about what happened. Once she finally gets in, she is raring and fucking READY to kick some ass. She alternates between both weapons, almost comically oversized (of course she has normal sized versions that she can and does use, but they don't convey the same /feeling/ as the huge ones), but if pressed she'll admit to liking her hammer more.

Fugaku, before saving Minato and making amends, had to be browbeaten by both Kushina and Mikoto. Sometimes, he's too wrapped up in what the Uchiha elders are whispering in his ear, and he needs a sharp reminder of how the real world works. Minato's other friends would have stepped in, but they know that nothing they said would actually get through to the Uchiha head so instead they focused on the Hyuuga twins. Hiashi saying that he shouldn't make decisions on other people's fates is f'ing poignant, man.  
———————————  
Oh noice.

Lets call her Keiko. Half-Hyuuga Keiko, her father is a Hyuuga and her mother was a civilian born woman that didn't want anything to do with clans, so she gave her daughter to her father the moment she was born. 

\---------  
Of course he's an asshole.

Minako, the moment she comes into being in spirit form in front of Minato goes; "Call me Nee-san! Or Baa-chan! Or I can even be your Kaa-san too! Oh is that your girlfriend? Hello there red head you may call me Kaa-san-"

Unlike Minato she has VERY chaotic energy, and the era she comes from was loud and boisterous.  
Getting into her abilities... she doesn't have a lot of chakra capacity, but she has remarkable control over all the elements, which she channels through to her weapons. Like, she can form a Tsunami by wacking her hammer to the ground, or split the earth apart with a strike from her axe.

Minato @Hiashi: Does that include family as well?

Hiashi:.... I mean-  
———————————  
She's cold to both of them at first. Especially to Minato who looks so girly and is so young, and seems to be soft spoken.

Then he shows exactly how strong his will of fire is and she reevaluates her view of him.

\-------------

Whenever Minato gets fired up about something and snaps, thats his inner Minako channeling.

Minako's spirit is tied to a rock. She can make chaos with just her spirit, but she can't move away from the rock. When Madara shows up she demands Orochimaru to use impure ressurection on her, and then pulls her hammer out to smash Madara's asteroids to bits, cackling madly with glee.

Minako: HEY PORCUPINE YOU BETTER BE READY TO PAY FOR MESSING WITH MY DESCENDANT!!!

\----------

Minato, his inner Minako channeling: Why the fuck are you listening to old bastards that can't get their heads out of their asses?

Hizashi: *chokes on air*

Hiashi: *shooked because minato never actually swore before, definitely not that much at least*  
———————————  
Do you know who Minako would absolutely adore? Gai. She would love him to peices, and he would be /worse/ than he is in canon. She's also slightly influenced Kakashi, since Minato's his other dad and she influences Minato. It becomes terrifyingly apparent whenever Kakashi and Gai have their insane competitions.

Orochimaru tries to bind her to his will, but her strength of mind is so overpowering that his attempts don't even slow her down. She's just like, "Nah fucker," decks him halfway across the continent, and boosts to go see her adorable dandelion of a descendant. She's got a life time of hair ruffles and roughhousing to make up for, /stat/

When Kakashi first runs into one of Sakura's 'inner Sakura' moments, he has a terrible flash of deja vu.

\---

Fugaku, hiding behind a wall since he's not technically welcome in the convo: *nods knowingly, since he been getting the same lecture every month for years*  
———————————  
Gai is definitely her favorite she immediatelt challenges him to a arm wrestling contest.

Kushina has a bi panic when Minako's edo tensei form flexes her very apparent muscles. 

Oh man Minato smiling one moment then suddenly sending someone flying into the wall with a viciously angry expression?

Inoichi: I sometimes think you're a bit bi-polar.

Minato: Eh? *shocked pikachu face*

\---------  
Fugaku's guilty but being stubborn about it so he secretly follows Minato around, not on a creepy level but on a shinobi level. 

Yes there are levels to that in Narutoverse.  
———————————  
I'm sorry, I just can't get over the pun of BI-polar. I'm - I'm fucking dying.

It's Kushina's turn to get teased over her crush, and her friends are LIVING. Minato's a bit weirded out because that's his ancestor, but he loves how flustered and absolutely precious Kushina gets, so it's worth it.

\---

Sakumo gets fed up with Fugaku eventually; his poking around the wards of the house he shares with Kakashi, Minato, and Kushina has gotten beyond annoying. He flashsteps outside, yanks him up by the collar like he's a misbehaving pup, and sits him down for a serious Talk. Fugaku is still hesitant to actually approach Minato afterward, but Sakumo got his point across and the man does eventually fess up to his unfair actions against Minato.  
———————————  
I can't believe i didn't realize i was making a fucking pun.

Minato has a lot of fun with this, yes. Karma bitch. Also, Minato shows a rare teasing side to him through small actions and a rather seductive looking smirk.

Kushina nearly crushes the cup in her hand when Minato has to bend down to get something he 'accidentally' dropped and those pants hide none of dat booty treasure.

\-------

Sakumo dadding Minato into moving into the Hatake compound tho.

Papawolf disapproves of teen sunshines living conditions. And his tendency to overwork.

\-------

On long term missions if he's with a squad the other members get a bit unnerved of how Minato never seems to sleep, and yet still functions throughout the whole mission.

Minato, absentmindedly when asked: It's called adrenaline. And i sort of messed a bit with a seal that enhances senses so that it does more than enhancing senses.  
———————————  
Sakumo, using his Stern Parent voice: Minato, how do you expect to take care of Kakashi and make sure that I'm okay if you're all the way across town in your bunker of an apartment??? Minato: You have activated my martyr complex, now I must go with you. Damn you, sneaky self care! \--- Every time Minato comes back from a mission he is carted straight to the hospital for some good R&R with the bed that literally has his name written on it - if he doesn't need to go because he nearly got himself killed, then he needs to go because of how sleep deprived he is. Enforced Nap Time is very much a thing with him and his friends, since Minato never seems to sleep even at home. ——————————— During a sleepover; Minato: *is staring into the ceiling in the middle of the night without moving an inch* Inoichi, eyes closed:...Minato. Minato: ... Inoichi, getting up with a resigned expression: *motions towards the front porch* Then they spend the rest of the time playing shogi. The times Minato does sleep he always gets visions in the form of nightmares. One time he does sleep among his friends and he stopped breathing for a full one minute before he was shaken awake. Inoichi always offers therapy, which Minato refuses. \------- Okay but one day Minato doesn't have to go to the hospital and the entirety of Konoha is shaken, Tsunade personally takes time off to see if there is something wrong because if there isn't then the universe is collapsing. ——————————— Minato never plays well when he's tired, and it's a good way to monitor how much energy he has. Sometimes, if they're lucky, Minato is so tired that he passes out into a dreamless sleep. Mostly they just hope that by surrounding him with warmth and love they can limit how long/how bad the nightmares he has are. \--- (Tsunade buys a lotto ticket on the way, because if the world really IS ending, she may as well win some money before it does) ((The world's not ending, Minato just listened to Minako for the first time and was able to avoid yet another light brush with death. Also, it was only a 48 hour mission, and he was able to get in several cat naps.)) ———————————  
Minato can sleep anywhere in whatever position due to this. Like a cat. Just to get a dreamless sleep Minato works extremely hard.

But honestly coupled with other problems thats the least worrying trait of his.

\-------

(Pffft)

Okay so!

Minako at first was bound by an ancient stone tablet, and then became bound to Minato's inner subconsciousness or whatever when her descendant somehow found and read the tablet.

Minako and Minato switching bodies along with their counciousness- Jiraiya is befuddled at the sight of a girl that looks like his student. Where  
is Minato?

Its actually weird to try and flirt with a girl that looks like his student, like, the kid is his student and all.

His teammates are more beffudled. The Hoki kid (can we call him Koichi?) can't look Minato in the eyes for a full week because Minako boldly flirted with him.  
———————————  
If Minato ever dissapears in the middle of the night and it's not because of some seer thing, then you'd best believe you started playing a strange version of hide and seek bc the boy has wandered off and fallen asleep in the strangest place, strangest position. This in no way stops when he retires, stops having as many visions, and goes blind. His friends just worry about him more. (Kushina's slightly traumatized, because one time she went to sleep cuddled up next to her boyfriend and when she woke up they were inside of a crawl space in the ceiling she hadn't known about until just then)

\----

Jiraiya flirts with the girl that looks like his student. Once. Minato is appropriately weirded out and hardcore judges him whenever he thinks about it, and it's something that Jiraiya ends up really regretting.

Koichi gets even more flustered when Minato accidentally flirts with him, too. Kaori is in the background, drinking everything in like it's her favorite drama series (it is).

Question! Does Minato know about the body switching? Can he talk to Minako whenever? Does he have to consent to a switch, or can she just yoink his consciousness out? Is he aware of what she's doing while she's in charge? Inquiring minds want to know!  
———————————  
Oh god poor Kushina.

The question is how he managed that in his sleep without waking Kushina up.

OKAY BUT ONE TIME HE COMES OUT OF THE FOREST OF DEATH SLEEPILY AND HIS FRIENDS ARE LIKE;

Okay thats it we're tying you to the bed.

\----

((Is Kaori the Hyuuga?)) Poor Koichi, he's panicking and having a sexuality crisis so badly.

At first he isn't aware of it, he'd just paranoid because what was with that tablet why did it glow what did it do why isn't anything happening yet-

And all that good stuff.

The first few times that Minako comes out is during extremely harsh times were Minato actually starts praying for help and then BOOM! Here comes Minako with her hammer.

She doesn't get to stay around long because of how unsynchronized their mind and souls are at the moment, maybe as long as ten minutes before she has to opt out. The mind+body switching also takes a lot out of Minato.

Minato only becomes aware of her until one of his friends tell him. Minako specifically tells them they should tell him about her because her cute descendant is dense despite being so smart.

After that it becomes a mutual effort of synchronizing together and eventually it comes to the point Minato's aware of her actions when they switch.

He apologizes to Koichi for his ancestors actions.  
———————————  
Kushina was dead tired, and too comfortable with her boyfriend to be on guard. She relies heavily on her instincts to let her know if there's danger she needs to be awake for, so un-malicious movement that's not jarring was able to slip under her guard, just the once.

\---

((Yes - did I mess her name up already? I'm sorry, I'm terrible with remembering names (T.T) ))

Minako has all of her weapons either soul-bound to her, or stashed away in seals that would be able to withstand millennia without crumbling, hidden all over the continent. At first, Minato views Minako as yet another punishment of his curse because of how taxing the transformations are on his body, but he comes around soon after she keeps saving him and his team without incurring a terrible debt that Minato has to pay and she starts actually being able to talk to him.

His apology just makes it worse, since Koichi is a sucker for polite and caring people. It seems as though every time Team Jiraiya leaves on a mission at least one person falls for Minato, and whenever there's any blushing to be had, the half-Hyuuga is right there, eating it up. This is way better than the crappy manuscripts sensei has them proof read from time to time.  
———————————  
skjhleh still impressive in my opinion.

\-----

((nah its okay. would writing it down on a seperate notes help? Hyuuga Keiko. On the other hand i'm copying and pasting this entire convo so its available whenever you need to remember something or add more notes for yourself?))

Woo, adventure! Finding Minako's weapons! Of course, Minato doesn't get the chance to actively search for them because he's already busy as it is with Konoha.. so he ends up finding half of them maybe. The rest Naruto finds himself.

Aaaa I love this so much. Minato's too oblivious to notice Koichi's crush. And Minato's polite by nature, and very protective of his teammates.

Minato dozes off on a internally panicking Koichi's who is trying his best to not think about how pretty his male teammate is.

There is a moment during an undercover mission where Minato has to crossdress and Koichi has to be his partner, and they kiss in order to keep up a cover. Koichi gets surprisingly too into the kiss and that's when Minato gets a clue. Of course, he also discovers Koichi is a surprisingly good kisser that leaves him breathless. He doesn't see him as anything more than a teammate however.

Koichi finally manages to resolve his feelings towards Minato when they have one night together and its finally less awkward to be around each other.

Kushina challenges Koichi to a fight.  
———————————  
I'm going to actually make a folder or something for this once I get my life together, I swear! Right now, I've just been going back and re-reading the messages if I think I'm forgetting something.

Kushina: @Koichi fight me you coward  
Koichi: Why???  
Kushina: You got together with pretty boy before I did. Square up, mother fucker

(Kushina's not actually a crazy jealous girlfriend - she wants /details/, yes, but it's in the name of gathering more teasing material. Also, Koichi is super fun to poke at; she would have stopped picking fights with him forever ago if he didn't freak out as much as he does whenever she glares at him)  
———————————  
Aright take ur time hun~

Sjdjsnss i can totally see Kushina wanting the deets.

Koichi, my poor sort of functioning bi son.

\------------

Okay but Minato willingly reveals his Seer powers when Kushina reveals she is a Jinchuuriki to him.

Like, he is very hesitant but also doesn't want this to be unfair. He wants to trust Kushina, loves her even, and after a few days of internal debate calls Kushina over to his own house and unseals a box, and unseals his Seer Diary that he kept inside the box.  
———————————  
MUTUAL! LOVE! AND! TRUST! IS! MY! JAM!

Hell yes, the best way to lead Minato into a loving and healthy relationship is by making sure that there's plenty of trust between him and Kushina!! Love and support! New ideas on how to deal with trauma and a strong shoulder to cry on if needed!!!!!!!!  
———————————  
YEEEEEE

Kushina definitely hugs him while crying over this secret, and of what Minato must have had to endure.

She thanks him for trusting him, and tells him to Share his burden with her and for a moment Minato is afraid because thats his burden and he doesn't want anyone else to suffer even a little bit.

\---------

At Minako's era people lived like tribes. Within the Namikaze tribe, to prove that you're an adult woman you had to hunt down a tiger on your own, and to prove that you're an adult man you had to hunt down a mammoth on your own. They are animals that they only hunted for coming of age ceremonies.

When Minako straight up explains this then says "That's why I find your world weak." Mikoto's like, "I was born in the wrong era."

Fugaku is big scared for his life.  
———————————  
Because of this, Minako constantly referrs to everyone around her as children - even the adults. At one point, Minato gets so haggard about her teasing and constant jibes he says "Fine!" and goes out to find and hunt a mammoth. Everyone in Konoha is shook, but Kushina thinks that it sounds like /so much fun/ that she goes into the forest of death to hunt down a tiger. It goes without saying that Minako wholeheartedly approves of Kushina as her descendant's significant other. (After that, Kushina regularly goes into training ground 44 to hunt and 'play' with the various deadly animals inside, though she never kills one again - she got yelled at last time, and she doesn't want to deal with all of the paperwork they made her fill out ever again)  
———————————  
This-this is great.

Land of Snow definitely has a Mammoth. He goes and secretly hunts a male adult down during a solo mission there and makes sure nothing traces back to Konoha-though he does store the husks because of Minako's insistence.

Of course, he wasn't able to keep it completelt secret as someone witnessed him oneshotting a giant mammoth whiel wearing a Konoha headband so...  
"What am i even going to do with them?" So he just lives them in the storage scroll in some part of his room.

His friends are nosey and extremely surprised when this tiny ass scroll nearly stabs them with huge mammoth tusks.

Minato tells Kushina that both her and Minako are a menace to society. Kushina replies "If I'm a menace you're a hazard mister seal experimenter."  
Minako laughs in his head. hard.  
———————————  
I am HERE for Minato pulling an Izumi Curtis and becoming the crazy Konoha nin who took down a mammoth for no reason - there are horror stories circulating about this mystery leaf nin, and Minato is completely oblivious to this.

Kushina and Minako are best friends, and literally everyone other than baby Gai wishes that this was not the case.  
———————————  
oh my god that Izumi Curtis comparison. I love Izumi Curtis so much.

Gai is very happy to compete with Maniko and happily goes to bring down a mammoth himself because that sounds like a great and youthful idea!

Rumours start to go that Maito family is the one with the tradition. It's believable. Konoha doesn't correct anyone because they're not really aware of it either until a Kage Summit happens- or Kakashi and Obito work together with Suna shinobi during an A-rank mission.

I'm headcanoning that Minato is a bit of a scary teacher in this au. Like, he's kind and caring but he also makes sure that his students don't get coddled by himself.

((Then Naruto goes and pulls a thing because the sight makes him see an alternate timeline where Minako continued staying, and all the other hidden villages third eyes are opened.

Gaara: So it's a coming of age tradition in the Namikaze to take down a Mammoth.

Naruto: Yeah but it's really old and my dad only did it because our ancestor kept nagging him.

Hinata: .... *makes plans to go into the Forest of Death and find a tiger*))  
———————————  
It becomes a tradition among Naruto's generation, but only half of them take it seriously. Like, everyone /knows/ they all talk about taking down a mammoth or tiger to prove yourself to the one you have a crush on (the story's mutated a bit, as spoken word often does), but only some of the crazier ones actually go out and do the darned thing. When they come back like, "I did it" the rest of their peers look at them incredulously - "I thought you were joking about doing that???" (It's not a large enough tradition to endanger the mammoths or tigers, though, so they don't need to worry about hunting them into extinction)

It ends up as just yet another reason Kohona is basically holding all of the other villages hostage in their 'no war' state. They list it under Namikaze sub catagory G, because that crazy bastard is responsible for 90% of the things Konoha does that scares them.  
———————————  
Minato: Stop blaming me for all the abnormalities Konoha has. Most of them were already there.  
———————————  
Literally everyone else: but you made them SO MUCH WORSE  
———————————  
Minato: *opens mouth to retaliate*

Minato: *stops*

Minato: ....okay you might have a point there.

\-----

I get the feeling the conversation is coming to an end, one last thing;

Minato totally nearly dies in front of his students, like maybe a crazy Jashinist or something pinning him down to a wall while a blade digs through his abdomen and a tongue creepily licks the blood on his cheek.

Minato kills him of course but his students have a hard time recovering from seeing their sensei in sucha vulnerable position  
———————————  
Are we keeping his students as Rin Kakashi and Obito, or are we switching it up? Because this would make it so that they're even more motivated to become as dangerous as possible. Most of the other shinobi are just trying their best to stay alive, but Team Minato is all but killing themselves to make sure that NOTHING can kill their teacher. They're terrifying.  
———————————  
Rin Kakashi and Obito :3

The amount of protectiveness they have of each other is unbelievable and there are a lot of cuddle piles in the Hatake compound, in which Minato's student just feel better listening to their very much alive Sensei's heartbeat.

Minato gets even more of a taste of his own medicine.  
———————————


	3. Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Minato has two ANBU identities, some story on Mikoto's part in this whole AU, Minato's reckless behavior coming to bite him in the ass in the form of equally if not more reckless students...
> 
> Also a snake is kicked in the ass while a plant-child is adopted
> 
> Also Minato has a lot of identities. He has an adventure with Daimyo of another elemental nation, who almost elopes with him before he goes out with a bang. Many awkward moments.
> 
> Minako is a badass ancient grandma that comes from a hardcore tribe where coming of age ceremonies are about males hunting mammoths and females hunting tigers to prove they're an adult.
> 
> Added in somethings like how if you realize ur a different gender you have to do a certain ritual to prove that ur a girl not a boy and vice versa, like either redo it if ur realize it after the ceremony, or do the ceremony in a different way if u've realized it beforehand.
> 
> Still thinking on how Non-Binary and Agender should prove their gender-identities to the tribe in order to be treated as such.
> 
> oh man there are a lot of things i want to do about the ancient Namikaze tribe culture before Kaguya came down on the world.

His reckless behavior comes back to bite him in the ass two fold, since every once in a while they'll all be on a mission - Minato's injured like usual but is still trying to protect his students when he's shoved out of the way by his even more injured students who just reduce the enemy to a bloody paste with absolutely no regard to their own personal safety. He worries over them so much after that, but nothing he says seems to get through to them - they all just glare at him resolutely and say that they can and will do it again when the need arises.

When he tries to get help from his friends about how to dissuade them from their worrying life choices, they all give him VERY pointed looks.  
"If we knew the answer to that, Minato, then you wouldn't even be asking us this question."  
———————————  
After a few hours of restless thinking he comes to the horrifying conclusion that he will have to set an example.

Somehow.

When he asks if he and his team could take some days off he gets looks of astonishment and suspicion at the same time, and Kushina drops everything and directly asks Minato if he's feeling sick.

Those few days are used so that he can get his students some hobbies and while the goal was that his students will benefit from this he ends up benefitting from this venture as well.

It's basically a venture of doing something for yourself and Inoichi cries tears of happiness.

All four of them take a liking to knitting. They end up making a blanket that is too big for them to know what to do with as a group activity before they do something for themselves.

And his friends are extemely astonished at the fact that Minato isn't using this day off to train, or work on fuuinjutsu, or trying to improve his everything.

They're almost panicking.

When Minato gets a foreign feeling he nearly panicks because what? What is this feeling?

It turns out its called relaxing.

((Minato: Okay so either this will work or...

Shikaku: Or what?

Minato: Or it fails. And I become alcoholic.))

\-----

Also we've forgetten him, but Tenzou Yamato/Kinoe.

And one time during a extremely near death experience everyone except Konoha thought Minato had died but then he came back and people started calling him 'Undying Badger' alongside 'Yellow Flash' and 'Namikaze Bastard'.

because honey badgers are the most fearless and vicious creatures and considering how many times Minato seems to go head first into danger in this au the nickname fits.  
——————————  
They each make a strip of a large blanket they're planning on sewing together since none of them bought the little extension thing for knitting needles that lets you put more stitches on than just the amount you can shove onto one needle - the end result ends up really lopsided because they tend to drop stitches when they're not paying attention, and at some point Obito decided to make it a challenge to see who could finish the most strips the fastest. That's also the reason they end up with a blanket that can cover basically an entire room (at its widest). ((i just really like knitting, my bad))

The relaxation is nice (if a bit frightening at first since Minato freaked out when he realized he's not overcome with crippling anxiety for once), but sadly enough it's not very effective. Every time Minato does some crazy stupid stunt, his students are ALWAYS right there, being even more reckless. (Obito and Kakashi still get the Mangekyo, because on one mission they're too late - the only reason Minato isn't dead is because of Rin's fucking insane healing skills that she's crafted specifically for a situation like this, but it was touch and go. Minato did actually die, Rin just brought him back. Minato doesn't have the clearest memory of the incident; he just thinks that he had yet another close shave, but Rin Obito and Kakashi all blame themselves for his [temporary] death.)

Minato, no matter how much he jokes about it, would never become an alcoholic. He has too many trust issues to let himself be vulnerable around people, and especially not so often.

\---

Kakashi: hey do you know anything about this? *holds up bewildered and slightly brainwashed Kinoe*

"Retired" Minato: *dad instincts activate* I will in a couple of hours. Why don't you give him a tour of the house and get him settled in while you wait? I'm sure that Obito will love him!

"About to fuck someone's whole day up" Minato: Hey Rin, do you want to go raid one of Orochimaru's labs and maybe go on an extra field trip after that?

"Already Adopted" Kinoe: ??????(⊙_⊙)??????  
——————————  
That blanket is used a lot in sleepovers and is stored in a storage seal that Minato tattoed onto himself. He's the only one besides his students that can tell which seal it is.

When Minato learns that he has been assigned a genin team;

Minato: *worrying his lip as his eye scans Obito and Rin's file* I don't think I should be trusted around children.

Sakumo(Not Hokage yet): *raises eyebrow and tilts head in Kakashi's direction*

Minato: *sighs in frustration* I really shouldn't be trusted around fresh genin who I will probably lead to an early death.

Sakumo: Only probably!

Minato: No-That's- *unable to voice his visions of the ruined lives of Obito and Rin* this is just going to be painful for everyone probably.

Minato three days after meeting with Obito and Rin; i've had Obito and Rin for three days and if anything happen to them I will wipe an entire Hidden Village off the maps.

Minato when it turns out his students have become martyrs; Even after finding out about my sight you somehow still don't believe me whenever i predict this sort of stuff.

Minato would only ever drink alcohol after placing several powerful security seals around and making sure there are no horrible mistakes he will end up doing(which means removing a lot of fuuinjutsu stuff to another room). And he would do it alone, and after he's having an enough bad day that he can't justify by any means.

So he would drink alcohol but he would do it alone and he would do it rarely.

He has a small stash that he opens, like, once every two years. He never runs out of bottles since he finishes only half a bottle before he ends up knocking himself out. He's lightweight like that.

\-------

Back at it again with dad minato lmao  
——————————  
Sakumo, drafting a politely worded letter that more or less says "Hiruzen, retire bitch": It'll be good for you; this way you can make sure that Kakashi finds friends his own age, and the three of them can all watch out for each other whenever you're not there.

Mianto: I really don't think...

Sakumo "I know what's best for you stop being so stubborn" Hatake: InoShikaCho, the twins, and Fugaku will have to stop bugging you about being more cautious all the time.

Minato: I'll do it.

His sad man drinking parties get a little less sad when Obito gets his Kamui, but sometimes having someone else there makes it worse. It's a 50/50 shot of getting him to relax for a short period of time and making him break down into an unintelligible slew of apologies to the ghost he's seeing in your place.

\---

Kinoe didn't know that getting assigned to watch ROOT potential Hatake Kakashi would end up with him abandoning the cause that he's been grown to serve and getting a large and confusingly caring family in its stead. He can't find it in himself to regret anything, though, and it's... kind of nice.  
——————————  
one time Minato tells his students its important to know your allies weaknesses and strength and Kakashi the sassy lil shit goes;

"Well, I know Sensei's weakness is self care books."

Minato, without missing a beat and still smiling: "100 laps around the village Kakashi."

Hatake Sakumo, even tho Minato doesn't realize it yet pretty much ends up being a sort of father figure to hum. i love the idea of Sakumo gunning for Hokage just so he can get the job done himself.

Obito abuses Kamui a lot. like. he literally goes and builds a hut in it with Kakashi's help. more or less it becomes a place where during missions he and whoever he's saddled with gets to rest without threats looming around.

Minato manages to test out the Hiraishin's capabilities to travel to the Kamui dimension and it becomes available for him and his students and Kushiba even if Obito isn't around to take them.

and eventually his own students students if they are deemed worthy to learn the Hiraishin.

the Kamui dimension basically ends up beinga safe haven.

also poor Obito, the first time he dimension travelled in on a drunk Minato sobbing apologies to a ghost of his from another timeline he was probably more than a little shook, and concerned.

Kushina gets first hand privelege of witnessing a drunk Minato tho. Drunk Minato can be very cuddly, and refreshingly needy, it's not to the point of annoying he just whines or pouts if you have to move away, and then he sort of slurs a small sorry-not-sorry if i'm being annoying.  
\---------  
I've been blessed with a dream where Seer Minato is really good with tarot cards but only ever uses them on special occasions, or if his friends beg him to. During academy days when his visions weren't all that prominent, it was normal to see him surrounded by other students while he placed card and explained what it probably told about their future.

during a mission he uses his tarot card fortune telling skills to make a lot of money under a henge and then his disguise gets a reputation. It escalates even further when the Nation's Daimyo gets interested in his skills.

His disguise goes out with a bang and no one except for the Hokage and his friends know about this incident.  
——————————  
Sakumo definitely takes the Hokage position slightly before Hiruzen intends for him to, 100% because he felt that Sarutobi's decisions about Minato have been a little too cavalier. Minato doesn't know it, but he's been relegated to taller child in Sakumo's eyes (at lest, until Kakashi hits his growth spurt). Everyone else sees it, and it's not all that uncommon for his friends to ask Sakumo for permission to do something with his son and occasionally tattle to him about the latest concerning stunt Minato pulled.

Kamui becomes both a curse and a blessing since it means that there's a safe place for their family to relax and recover but it's also completely cut off from everything around them. It's often used as a means to get some alone time (both for mental health and for... other reasons) but sometimes ppl stay for far too long and end up getting in trouble because of it (or someone who was looking to do their own business shows up in the middle of something they don't want to see).

Drunk Minato is a treasure when he's not super sad, and Kushina likes to hoard him.  
\---

Literally every one who's in on his secret helps him kill off his wild alternate disguise so that he doesn't end up catching the bad side of the Daimyo's attention. His demise is so convoluted and extravagant that the written report of what happened straight up fills an entire binder and never repeats itself. It becomes almost as legendary as his disguise, and the entire thing makes him into an actual cryptid.  
(Sorry about the late reply, I didn't have internet for the last couple of days)  
——————————  
Minato not realizing he's been adopted? More likely than you think.

Obito places some ground rules regarding his Kamui dimension after accidentally witnessing Kushina putting the moves on Minato. Nothing too restricting, just that if they're gonna do the do they should do it in a seperate room. Or hut.(Over the generations the number of people using the Kamui dimension through Hiraishin grows, and more huts are built in it. Soon it becomes like an extremely small, isolated clan compound, and the deceased generations huts are available for those who need to look up information only a team generating from team Minato would know.)

Kushina's relatable. She failed to hoard him one time when his students decided to visit. He ended up keeping them close and intensely muttered about wanting to keep them safe.  
\---  
sknfeog4ejne the funny thing is the point of the mission itself was that he infiltrated the Daimyo's meetings and gain information for the Hokage... but then things got complicated when he ended up being too good at his occupation and the Daimyo caged him in a lavish room. One thing led to another and the whole debacle ended with Minato calling down Lightning and shouting about the curse of the God's and how they demanded sacrifice... his acting was very impressive.

He feels very awkward whenever he visits that particular nation because of the rumor about the romance between a Fortune teller and Daimyo. He half wants to correct some parts, like how the Daimyo actually acted and how there were no 'special' nights, and half wants to just straight up leave and go back home.  
——————————  
The separate dimension that all of Minato's inner circle seems to have access to becomes yet another myth that confuses and terrifies everyone else. Obito doesn't know exactly how he feels, since on one hand he /loves/ the amount of fame and fear that comes with it (he is an Uchiha after all, that kind of thing is his lifeblood), but on the other hand he doesn't get any recognition. Still, it's less pressing than making sure he doesn't get an eyeful of anyone else getting it on, /again/.

\---

okay but... lemme hit you with this: the Daimyo def hits on Minato. There was def something there, and Minato tries his hardest to not let his friends find out (that plan fails, since he was a bit confused about what the Daimyo's intentions were at first and asked for some help from them in order to figure out what the most powerful civilian in the Fire Nation wanted with him before he figures it out himself. Kushina is delighted - her boyfriend is highly sought after goods, with the Daimyo's seal of approval)  
This just makes Minato feel even /more/ awkward.  
——————————  
Okay but what if he does get recognition and there are rumors that team Minato is actually composed of divine beings. That's the only explanation. For those who aren't informed about the Kamui that is.

\---

Minato's fortune teller disguise, Akimitsu/Aiko(depending on the gender of the disguise), ends up making a comeback like, a year later, when some dire information is needed... he basically goes and 'visits' the Daimyo in his 'dreams', and he's feeling terribly guilty about how genuinely happy the Daimyo seems to be that his lover was visiting him from the Pure Lands.

He finally makes sure that all ties are severed by telling the Daimyo to move on before he ends the 'dream' AKA knocking him tf out.

\---

Okay but foreign nin mistaking Minato for a goddess of sorts bc of how ungodly pretty and powerful he is.

A Goddess of War. A, may or may not have found Minato being covered in blood and looking at him with intense bloodlust a bit hot. Killer B sighs at his brothers love for battle.

Tho he does flirt with Minato, half to catch him off by surprise and half because he is serious. I think Gyuki would have interesting ideas regarding the courtshipping of an enemy.

Rasa meets this one eyed jounin only a few times and he is certain that he is a succubus in disguise bc he keeps having to remind himself he is a married man. Especially when he looks into that blue sapphire eye.  
——————————  
Kushina gives Minato tips on how to subtly use the more feminine aspects of his disguise, not that he needs much help seeing as the Daimyo is completely infatuated with him, and it just leads to Minato blushing almost the entire mission. His "Please move on, you will find no happiness chained to your past" works, but the Daimyo still mentions his first lost love on occasion in public settings.

\---

Minako absolutely does not help this perception of him.

A often times tries to scope out potential conflict areas that might lead to another encounter with the hot blond who told him not to forget his brother is an actual person and told him that they liked him. It's blatantly obviously his way of flirting, and B started his own little flirt campaign to show his brother how ridiculous he's being (he gets way too into it, and when he figures out that he's developed a crush on the crazy Konoha shinobi it's not even surprising.) ((What is surprising is the platonic crush that Gyuki has also developed on their often blood soaked opponent))

When Gaara becomes fast friends with Naruto and causes a large number of inter-village visitations, Rasa despairs. He would never send anyone in his place, but he bemoans the evil temptations the Konoha information gatherer (because it has to be an attack to pry into Sand's private information, there's no reason anyone would be this /alluring/ on a normal basis).  
——————————  
Minako simultaneously boasts about how pretty invincible her family's genes are in the headspace they share and also scoffs and looks down on the suitors outside of Konoha. Or suitors that aren't doing the correct courtships.

At first Minato thinks that A is looking down on him, and gets annoyed at that.

Rasa: *stoic demeanor*

Minato: *enters Hokage's office* Hello Hokage-sama, Kazekage-sama, is there something you needed?

Rasa: *throws a vicious glare at a smug Hiruzen*

His students are now more overly protective of him. Kakashi goes so far as to tell him the 'All men are pigs.' Speech.

Also nearly the entirety of Kiri is worse off in the crush department. Kisame especially. Kisame for a moment thinks Minato might be a yokai of some sorts but no the guys naturally pretty that way.

Also, at some point Minato perfects medical seals and at this point the R&D department know him too well for the other fuuinjutsu ninja tools that would let other Konoha-nin use them.  
——————————  
Rasa has been a pain in Hiruzen's side for far too long, and he knows just how to get back at him. If Minato doesn't do anything, then Kushina or his little gang of friends will certainly do Hiruzen's dirty work for him. (This is yet another reason why Sakumo takes the hat when he does - he doesn't approve of using his son's -ah, Minato's - adorable charm as a political weapon without the boy's prior agreement. He dislikes Rasa even more than Sarutobi, for obvious reasons.)

Poor Minato, he's got Genma as his mother-hen wingman, Kushina and his friends as joking regular wingmen, and his students as his own personal chastity belt (barring Kushina). Kakashi may be the loudest about warning their sensei off of men, but he's certainly not the only one looking out for his delicate heart.

Kiri is well known for it's residents' history of falling for anyone who could easily kill them - their village wide crush is so far from unexpected, it's a point of pride.

In a slightly different definition of thirsty, Minato becomes one of the most sought after shinobi within the village based departments, constantly being fought over by (usually) Medical and R&D.  
——————————  
Sakumo dislikes the idea of Minato ending up sleeping with these unworthy suitors when he has a perfect mate(Kushina) right there.

The only ever time Gai looks like he is about to go out for blood is the thought of anyone trying to take advantage of Kakashi's kind hearted sensei.

Yagura doesn't show it on his face but he's internally screaming 'SO CUTE! SO DAMN HOT! A TOTAL GODDESS!' Whenever Minato does something cute(tilting head to the side) or whenever he's letting of killing intent.

The whole of Kiri try to subtly flirt with the blonde whenever he ends up coming over. It doesn't help that he's adorned his mission persona, which is stoic and a bit cold.

Medical and R&D have matches every once a week.

Shikaku's getting a headache from how his cryptid friend seems to be the center of all these big events.  
——————————  
Sakumo is Tired, especially when people keep coming after his more reckless kid even though he's happily paired off to the ideal mate (Kushina). Kakashi is a slightly more posessive version of tired, and is always backed up by either his teammates or (if you're really unlucky) Gai. Kushina knows this, and loves to have fun at her in-laws' expense.

Let's be real, all of the jinchuuriki develop crushes on Minato (for the younger ones, the crush is more "I want him to be my dad" than "I want him"). Kushina's the real winner, though Rin and Obito (depending on where canon takes us, as the sanbi and juubi jinchuuriki respectively) often argue over which of them comes in second.

Minato, coming back from Kiri: *to his friends, v confused* Do I look weak?

His friends, already ready for another Crazy Story: No? The scarring and cold persona are enough to overcome your height and fluffy hair.

Minato, pouting: Then why was everyone in Kiri challenging me to sparring matches?

Inochi, who's hip to Kiri courting practices: They /WHAT?/

It's not even the events that bug him, at this point. It's the way Minato is consistantly either unaware of what he causes or unabashedly embarrassed. Because he's done it again. On accident. Why is this Shikaku's life?  
——————————  
The other Kage's realize that Minato's technically Sakumo's son so they start to subtly ask for permission. Sakumo very nearly draws out his chokuto while thinly smiling and informing them his son is taken.

Inoichi: mY CHILD-*sobbing*

Shikaku: *patting his arm pityingly*

Chouza: *looks emotional*

Utakata likes making different shapped bubbles in different colors whenever Minato visits. He doesn't go and challenge him to a fight, sensitive and aware of how the blonde who likes his bubbles already has a wife. He does express that he thinks Minato has a wonderful personality and that he thinks Kushina is lucky. Saiken, the six tails, really wants to give Minato something nice to look at. Immensely. He sees how unkind life has been on the kind soul.

The Bijuu are aware of the Namikaze clan to some degree. Kokuo, the Gobi, forces Han to back down, uncharacteristically loud and angry at the thought of his own host hurting someone from that clan. Before Indra and Ashura's quarrel, Kokuo had come across the wandering clan, and had witnessed just how much they have to endure... yet they stay so strong.

He is more than a bit devastated at discovering that Minato is the last of his clan.

Yugao thinks that Minako is extremely cool tho she doesn't see her often. She thinks Minato is very nice and wants to snuggle up against his side all day.

\---

A devastating secret that Minato hides- he has ticklish spots. Kushina explores them all and very nearly kills him from laughing so hard. His friends discover this secret.

Minato dashes extremely fast across the rooftops as evil grinning people run after him with ready to tickle hands.

\---

Imagine when Sakumo tells Minato he's welcome and should stay in the Hatake Compound.

This 16 yo teen stays rooted on the spot, blinking a few times at this man he had gotten close with for the past 6-7 months or so, and there is a brief moment where his one eye looks desperate and... alone.

Then Minato ends up lightly speaking about a reason or two about why he probably shouldn't stay at his own students house before quickly leaving, mask in place.

It takes two weeks for Minato to find himself living in the Hatake Compound and it's so damn nice he decides to let it go. Even if he isn't sure how this situation came to be.

(Everyone pitched in on Sakumo's schemes and helped the Dadwolf out)  
——————————  
Minato always has a little posse following him around, whether they're star-struck children, lust-struck kage, or admiration-struck jinhuuriki/bijuu. Sakumo likes one of these groups a lot less than the others, take a wild guess as to which. Kushina loves them all, since she gets to rub her relationship in the face of not only her fellow jinchuuriki (that are old enough to be jealous) but also literal KAGE. She's fucking /living/, while Minato remains generally clueless.

\---

When Minato finds out what Shisui's Mangekyo can do, he practically begs the kid to make him not be ticklish. Shisui doesn't comply, and now yet another person knows his secrete.

\---

(Sakumo knows firsthand what isolation and pressure can lead even the strongest shinobi to, and to let such a potential stand in regards to the person he owes his life and his son's happiness to is unforgivable. Minato living with him was a forgone conclusion, even if it took the blond some time before he accepted it) ((back at the start, Sakumo was still not the best at hiding his devotion to this young shinobi with the biggest heart he's ever seen - he manages to tone it down when Minato comments on it, but that doesn't mean the core feeling has lessened at all. Above Konoha, Sakumo is loyal to /pack/))  
——————————  
Kushina, fresh genin: Bragging about your partner sounds so stupid and annoying.

Kushina, Mina as bf: YO LOOK AT MY BOYFRIEND HE'S SO SMART AND CUTE

Minato: *confused and flustered from the suddeness*

\----

Shisui is absolutely a last resort tho. Minato knows that kid has a trickster streak to him.

The first one to find out this secret is actually his teammates. It's after they get to go on missions again because Minato had to get used to training with one eye.

Koichi had managed to get them both into a sleepover at his house. Keiko teamed up with him in getting Minato to agree after she discovered Koichi was scheming to get Minato to feel better(Minato when he woke up in the hospital with one sided vision had said he was 'fine' with a smile. None of them believed him. They didn't know the real reason why he wasn't fine was because he can now see the moving corpses of could-have-been-dead-teammates.)

Halfway during the sleepover Koichi had decided to playfully dig his fingers into Minato's side.

The sound of giggles were surprising.

A moment of silence where Minato had looked in mild confusion as to why his teammates had freezed.

Then they ganged up on him and he found himself begging for mercy, trying to get away from them, flailing, failing at easing up on his torments. By the time they stopped he was a breathless mess, small, having spasms of after giggles as he gasped for breath between them. He called them 'evil' after a minute.

\----

Minato is simultaneously a big brother and father figure to Kakashi. Minato doesn't know he's pack until Kakashi calls him that.

Kakashi had a phase where he likes to scent people he fully trusts and considers pack by cuddling up against them. Minato found this so cute.

Shsjdnj Tsume(The Inuzaka Alpha clanhead) totally got into a lot of staring contests with Sakumo whenever Minato was around.

One time Tsume threw an arm over Minato's shoulder while maintaining eye contact and mini Kakashi let out an involuntary growl.

\----

Regarding his ANBU moniker in this AU, should we still make it Owl or should he have the Badger mask instead? Bc his reckless behavior would probs be associated with the Honey Badger a lot srry if im being annoying about this.  
——————————  
Kushina: GET AN EYEFUL OF THIS ONE, ALL, BECAUSE I GET HIM ALL TO MYSELF! YOU CAN LOOK BUT YOU CAN'T TOUCH, UNLESS YOU WANT HIM TO TEAR YOUR ARM OFF!

\---

He'll never be thankful for a tickle-attack, but the first one was the only reason he was able to pull himself out of a future that never happened - it's hard to stare into the rotting eyes of his still living teammates when they're right next to you, full of life and mischief as they try to finish off what his curse started by tickling him to death. Whenever he sees those particular ghosts, he can always snap himself out of it by looking at their eyes; if they don't hold an imminent threat of tickle-induced asthma, then they're not /his/ teammates.

\---

Kakashi didn't like being held, but he absolutely was a little stinker when it came to holding hands. It never mattered how much stuff Minato (and occassionally Sakumo) was carrying, or how important the thing he was trying not to be late to was, Kakashi would insist that he holds his hand for as long as he can get away with it.

Straight up, baby-Kakashi tries to throw hands with Tsume. Multiple times. When he was old enough to give her an actual challenge, they started to regularly spar, though that peters out when Tsume realized that, pretty soon, she's not going to be able to beat this little territorial puppy any more.

\---

I would like to think that no one would put Minato in the ANBU with how mentally fragile he is, but then I remembered Kakashi's canon ANBU career. He might have two alternating masks he's assigned based on the type of mission he's being sent on with Owl taking on missions that require a strange amount of foreknowledge and encyclopedic knowledge of some subject while Badger is assigned the other tasks and has the best record in ANBU when it comes to making sure everyone he's assigned makes it back home. (You are absolutely fine, live out your Honey Badger dreams to your heart's content - what is fanfic if not the place to write about things we're passionate about, things that are fun and bring us joy? I certainly slip enough of my own little references into my stories that you will find no judgement from me!)

Also, istg, I was writing an ANBU in the chapter I'm working on and I named them Owl. Wild.  
——————————  
The one thing Minato always does, is noting the differences between the corpse form of his dear ones vs the living version of them. At some point it becomes a strange twisted game, like how one taps their fingers to pass the time.

The first time Inoichi manages to get Minato to let him do a diagnosis of his mental problems(Yamanaka do help the traditional way afterwards, and this is after they find out about Minato's secret.) he is horrified.

Seeing death that will not happen anymore? Turns out its not really a part of the Seer ability. The reason why Minato sees corpses is bc his own brain is struggling to accept the reality where they're alive people instead. They're genuinely hallucinations basically.

Minato looks the slightest bit relieved that they are only that. Hallucinations. It's not ghosts of some alternate universes haunting him, and blaming him in the stead of the Minato's that failed to save them.

\-----

Minato always complies bc he's a sucker for children and he sometimes has trouble seeing Kakashi's jounin rank when such small hands fit into his. He knows he is still capable of killing, knows that he has completed missions, but Kakashi is still also a child and Minato unless he is severely compromised would never say no to holding hands.

\----

From what i understand so far, ANBU is exactly the place for fucked up individuals, a place to be someone else? And sometimes even used as a fucked up coping mechanism.

So Hiruzen, and perhaps other ANBU units might think that he fits ANBU, but they would approach him at 13 yo, when he (i hc) makes it to jounin and has many achievements under his belt...(bc he'd invent the Rasengan earlied(?) and all which qualifies him for the higher rank)

His friends are livid when they find out of course.

Also minato having three identities? Wack.  
——————————  
I'd have to look up some actual info on visual hallucinations, but that concept sounds heartbreaking with how relieving it is. Maybe we can slap Minato with perfect recall, which is why he hallucinates the dead ghosts of his friends, carbon copies from his visions from when he fails them.

With proper therapy (and medication? Maybe? Again, I have to research it before anything else), Minato starts to see just his friends around him, no ghastly specter constantly reminding him of what very easily could have been. He still plays his "spot the difference" game, and is so, /so/ relieved every time he can confirm it's really his friends. That they exist, and he didn't fail them. (Maybe his hallucinations are only visual, so an easy way to tell is to try and get some sort of auditory confirmation? idk)

\---

Kakashi started the habit when he was barely large enough to grab onto a whole finger, and the introduction of this sad, stubborn older brother/other dad into his life just when he was going through a period of serious personal upheaval reignited it. He clings to the people he's afraid to lose, because he knows that it's a very real possibility that they'll cease to exist unless he forces them to /stay with him/.

\---

Honestly, if the ANBU wasn't a place for fucked up individuals in the first place then it def. turns the normal folks who join into fucked up individuals. People def. use it as a coping mechanism (sorry to bring this back to my story, but I'm kind of taking that route for Mikoto!)

Hiruzen's like, "he might be useful" and Danzo's like, "throw him into ANBU!" (I might even be able to steal him for myself, then!) Is there a rank requirement for ANBU? I know I've read about tonkubetsu (sp?) jounin joining, but I'm p sure that was a fanfic.

His friends do to him what Gai did to Kakashi: refuse to let him spiral into that dark place and pull him out whatever way they can. The day Sakumo makes Hokage, he personally "retires" Minato (if he was still in, I'll leave that up to you).

Honestly? If we count his Dayimo-wooing fortune teller identity? He has four. (Five, if you also want to include his Izumi-channeling for Minako's coming of age challenge) ((the boy's a mess))

Damn, but the angst was strong in this one. Oops ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯  
——————————  
Minato has good memory. He hates it sometimes but it helped him in the Academy and still helps him now. But it's also a pain in the ass.

Since they're visuals there isn't any audio, but bc the brain can also copy and make sounds, Minato can sometimes vaguely hear how their blood drips onto the tile, or their flesh squelch. Being a shinobi who has received and returned many sorts of injuries does not help.

OK so found this article, might help?  
(https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/978-3-319-08613-2_45-1.pdf)

Basically it's about auditory hallucinations caused by PTSD and chromic trauma disorder(is it the same thing?), i think it's more closely tied here.

\---

The first time Kakashi does this Minato helplessly looks at Sakumo at first bc he recognizes that what Kakashi's doing is reserved for very close individuals. And as an orphan as long as he could remember, Minato has no idea how to react to the thought of being considered family by the Hatake.

\---

i don't think there is a rank requirement. in fact, it might even be better if you're genin or chuunin because that means you're less attention catching usually. Minato is famous, but he's such a cryptid that it balances out.

He has several identities actually bc he's often sent as a spy on ANBU missions. He makes up for his missing eye either with a henge, or uses some sort of seal that acts like a glass eye if the mission involves other shinobi that could definitely sense a henge.

Minato also somehow gets along with the crazy ones. The ones that are 24/7 ANBU and definitely belong in the mental ward of Konoha's hospital.

Both Mikoto and Minato don't recognize each other at first, not until one of them while going through their life outside of ANBU absent mindedly does something, maybe a subtle hand signal, and the other answers it back automatically and they both glance at each other before pretending the interaction didn't happen.

Mikoto def drags him into a sealed corner to scream at him about becoming a part of ANBU and making friends with certain crazy individuals. Mikoto's ANBU mask is either Crow or Cat. I think Crow tho, and Itachi receives her legacy(much later on in this AU bc Minato and Mikoto refuses to let clan elders needlessly traumatize the child)

Minato also uses the ANBU position to gather evidence on ROOT secretly.

He and Mikoto partner up, mostly bc Mikoto insisted on it and Minato's too paranoid to let her near anywhere Danzo has his hands own, at least not without himself by her side.  
——————————  
Oooh, shiny info - I'll read it when it's not 3 am and I need to be up and driving by 8. As for piling on the angst and disturbing imagery and audio for our sunshine boy, hell yes.

\---

Suck it up dandelion head, you've been adopted. Kakashi decreed it, so now you're /really/ stuck. You wouldn't say no to that face, would you? (Sakumo is not above emotional manipulation if it will improve Mintao's living conditions/mental condition in the long run.) ((Hey, if he wants to lose the Namikaze name before getting married to Kushina he can always take on "Hatake". Sakumo would probably cry with happiness, and Kakashi would be unbearably smug for /years/))

\---

Mikoto likes to think that she's one of the few sane ones, but she's def one of the one's who's been in for so long that it's basically her life (before she has Itachi). She just passes a lot better than her fellow crazy ANBU. They swap parenting tips on how to raise your genius child, arrange playdates, and help keep Root at bay since he's interested in both of their kids (Itachi and Kakashi). Mikoto likes to think that she's taking care of Minato, but in reality they're just weirdly close friends. Mikoto is the one who comes up with the more concerning ideas, surprisingly, and Minato's actually the one who has to bring her down to earth frequently.

Kushina, once she finds out about their friendship (We're not friends, Kushina, I'm just making sure he doesn't spend too much time with the wrong mask and end up getting himself killed. Really. Stop looking at me like that.) is thoroughly amused and not at all surprised at the dynamic it's taken. She gives Minato advice on how to curb some of her friend's more destructive impulses.  
——————————  
Oof good luck.

\---

Honestly that sounds like a cute idea, but nothing is ever officially made, and Sakumo's summons are subtly against the idea of the Namikaze name vanishing off the records.  
The oldest wolf summon among them, is extremely ancient, more ancient than the old toad, and nearly can't lift her head. A day doesn't go by where she recalls her days as a young pup, where this golden haired woman would take her into her arms...

At some point Minako summons her, Aika, and the ancient wolfs last moments are spent with the ancient spirit that hugged her. I'm crying just imagining this.

\---

Minato and Mikoto make a terrifying duo within ANBU. Also, Uchiha's are possessive when it comes to friends, lovers and family, so Mikoto's actual reason of trying to try and keep Minato to herself is bc she doesn't personally know the 24/7 ANBU's, and she's slightly jelly.

At some point their Owl and Crow moniker start to be called 'feathery twins'. Owl is the neutral, but polite birb while Crow is the actively hostile birb.  
They both get flirted with at some point. Crow nearly fends them all off.

\---

Minato sets the Shiki Fujin scroll on fire the moment he comes across it bc screw that.  
This is because he once had a vision and he saw literal hell. then decided no.  
\--- I've been thinking about Minako's tribe ritual. If you decided you are a different gender, like say you are born a woman but later on you realized you're a man, you have to prove it by hunting down a Mammoth. Sometimes people realize their true gender after the coming of age ritual and that means they have redo it. Then you collect evidence like fur, husk, teeth etc. to present to the clan elders in front of everyone as proof of your gender. If Bi-gendered, Non-binary, Agendered etc. you had to hunt down both. Or maybe Non-Binary have to hunt down creatures that are especially hard to catch as proof of how they're unbound from gender descriptions. ——————————


End file.
